Smoke In the Wind
by tigerlily25
Summary: In the aftermath of Aliyah, Tony and the team cope with Ziva's assumed betrayal and abandonment, but not everything is as it seems. What they find will unravel a web of secrets spanning the globe. Eventually Tony/Ziva.
1. Khaki

_**Author's Note:** I'm jumping on the bandwagon of post-Aliyah fics after reading some fantastic fic by authors like Sashile and DrawMeASheep (to name a few). This is my first NCIS fic, so comments and reviews would be much appreciated..._

_Disclaimer: NCIS characters, plot etc are the property of someone far more clever (and a whole heap richer) than me. No profit is being made from this story. I own only my computer, NCIS Season 3-5 DVDs and the ramblings of my mind (and even those are probably borrowed from somewhere else)._

* * *

He sees her every damn night in his dreams, and she's never the same. The only thing that never changes is that she disappears, fading into the shadows, like smoke in the wind.

***

_On Monday she's shrouded in khaki, her hair wild around her face like a halo. She doesn't speak, just smirks at him wickedly in a way that sends heat flooding through his body. _

_She's not wearing makeup, and Tony is reminded of the first day they met, when she stood before him proclaiming a man's innocence and he told her that he couldn't – wouldn't - help her. _

_("I want the bastard dead too.")_

_She was as adamant about saving Ari as she was about protecting Michael, though the events following Ari's death didn't lead to him lying winded on Mossad concrete; half-fearing for his life and reminded in a split second exactly what she was capable of. In the end, two men she loved were killed by NCIS agents. _

_He thinks of the shadow of a stain on a basement floor and wonders if she's made that connection. _

_She gives him a look that makes him wonder if he said that last part out loud. He wishes she would say something (he misses the sound of her voice), but she simply raises an eyebrow and turns, walking away with a leonine grace he knows comes from years of training. _

_He tries to tell her to stay, but the words stick in his throat. He opens his eyes wide and tells himself he won't blink (that way he won't miss a second) but she disappears anyway._

_He wakes up thinking of all the blinks in the last three years, all the things he missed. _

***

They've been back in Washington for eleven days and haven't caught a case. The lack of distraction is infecting the team like… something other than the plague, because they've been there, done that.

McGee quite obviously prefers to spend his time 'helping' Abby in the lab than sitting at his desk amongst the oppressive silence. Tony wonders, not for the first time, if McGee and Abby have a MOAS of their own that they're not sharing. Maybe more than one. He's seen the way they look at each other when they think nobody's paying attention. It would be hypocritical of him to joke about it, so he keeps his mouth shut and remembers a time not so long ago when he was the one stealing glances across the bullpen.

The original man of secrets, one Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, appears to be hiding something himself. Gibbs has never been one for sharing, but after eight years Tony thought he'd seen all the Gibbs-moods in the book. He wonders if he left his ability to read Gibbs on the tarmac in a foreign country with his heart.

If Z… _she_… was here they'd be playing Guess the Mood right now (Left shoulder muscles slightly tense: _tired_. Tense shoulder + head tilt of less than 15 degrees: _tired and brooding_. All of the above + narrowed eyes: _refill required, stat_). It almost makes him smile, thinking about it.

If she was here…

Maybe that's the root of the problem. She's _chosen_ to be a world away (probably channelling her anger at Tony into secret Mossad ninja business, the specifics of which he both does and does not want to know), and Gibbs seems distracted and angry, and Tony didn't dare ask what she said to Gibbs on the tarmac. All he could muster was a pitiful 'One down, boss?'.

He wishes he'd had the cojones to ask, but he was not a little afraid of the answer, and the throbbing of his shoulder was a reminder of just how much he's fucked things up for all of them – Gibbs, and the team, and the Director (whose agenda he doesn't trust anyway), and even Director David (who obviously sent Rivkin for a purpose and now will have to send someone else to do his dirty work).

Mostly for her (and him, and not just in a we're-friends-and-partners sense), though inside his head a little voice says _"You're not the one to blame here..." _

He aches inside when he thinks of her a world away, hating him. He hopes she's not so blinded by her anger that she becomes reckless. It wouldn't be the first time.

_('It was just a little love tap!')_

He's combing through the seemingly endless cold case files, half-wishing the phone would ring, that he'd hear the familiar 'Grab your gear!'. It's not lost on him that what he's waiting for (a distraction from the ever-present feeling of loss) would mean someone else out there losing their life, or someone they love.

Tony has new sympathy for those that are left behind, especially those who find out that the person who left them is someone they don't really know at all.

Sometimes when it's quiet at work he hears her laugh echo from across the bullpen, or feels the prickle on the back of his neck that usually means she's crept up behind him again. The first time he whirled around unthinkingly and scared the bejesus out of Chuck the filing clerk. The second time there was only empty air. After the third time, there were whispers about a certain Senior Field Agent who was scared of his own shadow.

He doesn't bother turning any more (though he makes a point of talking loudly about his most violent takedowns around the other agents), and he's fairly sure it was McGee who glued Agent Friedrichs' desk drawers shut after they traced the rumours back to him.

He remembers his Nonna, who saw her little brother Antonio in her dreams for a month after he died, and almost finds himself praying to a forgotten God that his – and her – ending will be different.

He's been trained not to believe in coincidences.

'Petty Officer found dead in Rock Creek Park. Grab your gear!'

But then, he thinks wryly, as he hears the words he's been waiting for and snaps back to reality, he's also been trained to follow the rules.

'DINOZZO!'

He grabs his backpack and races toward the elevator, popping himself across the back of the head with his good hand as he runs.

_Rule #1: Never screw over your partner._

Some days he can't help but wonder exactly who screwed who.


	2. Emerald

_Thankyou to all those who reviewed/added this story to their Alerts/Favourites list. It's nice to see that someone is reading my scribblings._

_**Disclaimer:** In the words of Phoebe Buffay - 'not not mine, not not mine'_

* * *

On Tuesday, it rains (all day, like the day that he first met her), which is not good for successful evidence collection or Gibbs' mood. The boss spends the day barking orders and snapping at everyone, even Abby, who (unusually) snaps back and then declares Labby a 'No Lurking' zone for the rest of the day, pushing them all out the door with fire in her eyes.

'_I could kill you without leaving a shred of evidence, you know. And right now I'm pissed enough that I just might. Out!'_

Tony (never one to take a hint when something needs to be said) goes back anyway, armed with a Caf!Pow and DiNozzo Smile #6 ('everything is going to work out just fine'). He's not sure he believes it himself, but it seems to do the trick – she unlocks the door and moves aside to let him in, her chain belt clinking as she slumps onto a stool.

He leans against the table and waits.

'I thought McGee would be the first one to try, he never knows when to quit,' she says curiously, twirling a pigtail around her finger. She hesitates, her gaze skittering around the room (anywhere but meeting his), so unlike her usual upfront self that he knows whatever's coming is going to hurt.

'Have you heard from…' She doesn't finish her sentence, as though the name is taboo. He almost wishes it was – it would give him an excuse to order himself not to think it with every second breath.

She looks ashamed, as if she can't believe she's asking him that. And he was right, it knocks the wind from him for a second like he's been punched in the solar plexus (or found himself flat on his back on concrete, a raging ninja pressing her gun to his heart).

He flinches, and tries to pass it off as a shrug, but he knows she's not fooled. He thinks of making a joke and just as quickly discards the thought. Instead he bites his tongue and sucks briefly on the Caf!Pow before handing it to her. It floods his mouth; bitter like regret and the apology he never got to say aloud.

_She accepts apologies, she told him so once after he'd deliberately tried to wound her with the memory of a man dead before anything had a chance to begin. He does listen to some things she's told him over the past few years._

She's quick to jump in when he doesn't answer, tripping over her tongue in her haste to fill the awkward silence. He realises suddenly that there's been no music in Abby's lab since the forensic scientist found out they left one of the team behind on the tarmac, whether it was by choice or not. If Abby had her way, Ziva would have been dragged back kicking and screaming. Possibly lost a hand in the process, but still…

Tony knows she blames Gibbs for not trying harder, and wonders yet again what went down in those minutes before Gibbs signalled the pilot to take off, something almost like sorrow in his eyes.

'I'm sorry. I just… she hasn't emailed, and I tried to call to tell her how mad I was that she just left, but her phone's been disconnected, so I – well, McGee and I – went cyber-snooping and couldn't find a trace of her. It's like she never existed.'

He doesn't know what he thinks about _that_.

'I'm the last person she'd contact, considering the last time I saw her properly she had her gun pressed to my knee,' he says somewhat bitterly. As soon as the words are out he regrets them, having forgotten for a moment that Abby doesn't know all the details of their Israel adventures.

'Guess she has more control than we gave her credit for.'

He doesn't know what he was expecting (Sympathy? Shock?), but it sure wasn't that. 'Huh?' he splutters, a little hurt. She's quick to clarify.

'Not that violence is okay, or that I think you deserve to have a bullet in your knee… but honestly Tony, did you forget assassin rule number 1? Not shoot first and ask questions later because obviously she didn't do _that_, which is a good thing since I like my Tony-shaped friend even if he is incredibly dense sometimes…'

***

He tunes her out as he is propelled back into the past, to a time of sun-soaked days and slowly finding his feet as a leader. And other things…

_(frantic hands roving under covers – for real this time –, the meeting of hot mouths as they both tried to chase away their ghosts and find comfort in shared grief) _

…that they did not speak of, as if it…

_(laughing at her botched idioms or his inability to keep up with her in the mornings, stolen kisses and futile reassurances to each other that it was just a fling, it meant nothing) _

…never happened…

_(and then she disappeared and Gibbs rode in to save the day – though she saved herself in the end – and he felt the sting of her silence even as logic told him it was her way of protecting him. He drove her home, sat with her for awhile as they both struggled with what they didn't want to say. He watched with aching eyes as the bruises bloomed across her face and when she wouldn't meet his eyes he knew with sudden certainty that it was over)_

He sometimes wakes in the night thinking he can hear her snoring and reaches blindly, hopefully, across the bed to find only emptiness.

'_There's only one thing you need to know about Officer David –'_

'_Don't make her angry.'_

He never meant to cause her pain by provoking her outside Mossad headquarters, he just wanted to force her to _look_ at him. He wishes sometimes that he hadn't, because now when he thinks of her he can feel the cold steel of her gun biting into his knee.

He had a bruise for eight days and when he thought nobody was looking he would press it into the underside of his desk. It hurt less than his aching heart.

***

'And the next thing I knew we were naked and she was showing me some of her best ninja moves in a giant tub of jelly…'

_That_ gets his attention. 'Jelly what?'

'Ha! I knew you weren't listening. I was just saying that you-'

'Abs! Not now.' He hates the tone that creeps into his voice, part embarrassment for being caught out so obviously, part warning that he's had about all he can take of this particular line of questioning. If it were anyone else, he wouldn't have let them get past the first sentence; but it's Abby, and he hates to see her hurting. They all do.

Despite the heavy makeup and the outrageous clothing, Abby is the bittersweet reminder of everyone they couldn't save (mothers and brothers and strangers and friends, a never-ending chorus of grief and regret: ShannonKellyTaliKateJenny), and they try to shield her where others could not be shielded.

He forgets sometimes that she's not entirely innocent.

Abby seems to sense that she's gotten all she can from this particular suspect, and turns back to her computer. Case not entirely closed, but shelved for the time being pending further evidence and interrogation. The mood has lifted noticeably in the lab, but the stereo speakers remain silent as though biding their time.

They will all recover from this. (He doesn't believe it yet, but a few more repetitions and he just might.) Still stuck on '_never existed'_, he turns to leave.

He pretends not to notice that Broom Ziva is back, though lurking in the corner instead of in front of the table – perhaps a concession on Abby's part to their… whatever they feel. Pain? Anger? Betrayal?

It's days like these he's not sure what he feels.

'_Nothing is inevitable.'_

* * *

McGee tracked the missing suspect to a house in Georgetown, and they raided the place to find her dead by her own hand. With all evidence pointing to her guilt, and Gibbs' gut not telling him otherwise, they close the case and begin tying up the loose ends.

The rain shows no sign of stopping.

Vance hovers nearby, watching them like a mistrustful father who's just waiting for his children to put a toe out of line. McGee mutters to Tony that he's just waiting for the order to extend their palms to receive 'six of the best'. Tony forgets himself for a minute and barks out a laugh, and Tim's eyes brighten.

Gibbs refrains from commenting on the Directors' presence but is on edge, silently and surreptitiously watching the watcher. There's a cloud of mistrust in the air that could choke them all (or result in the biggest pissing contest ever).

He tries not to compare it to the days immediately after a bloated body was pulled from a harbor – fails, but points for trying – and hopes nobody has to die for the current secrets to come out.

Oh, how he hopes.

Tony falls asleep at his desk somewhere around 0230, halfway through writing his case report. One minute he's typing (he drops the hunt-and-peck façade when nobody else is around to watch him) and the next thing he knows…

…_he's up in MTAC, watching a live feed of a foreign vessel sailing toward an unknown destination. He blinks twice, confused. He's never seen MTAC empty before, and wonders where the technicians have gone. The last time he was in this room… he doesn't want to think about it. His doubting words marked the beginning of the end._

_The first sign that he's not alone is the smell of cinnamon and clove, and something else he can't quite identify. He thinks it might be regret._

'_It is raining bats and dogs outside,' she says teasingly in his ear, and he jumps like he's been shot. It's easy to fall back into their game._

'_Cats, Zee-vah. Raining cats and dogs.' They're practically cheek to cheek and he can feel her frown. He tries to turn to face her, but she slips back into the darkness. He squints but cannot see her amongst the rows of chairs._

'_I would not try, if I were you. You may not like what you see.' _

_Her words are shadowed with remorse and laced with anger, but he can't tell whether it's for her or for him. She's never been the self-pitying type (but then she's hard to read sometimes, so who's to tell really) and he aches for her._

_He's suddenly glad he can't see her face. It gives him strength to say what he's been thinking for awhile now._

'_I lost you.' _

'_No. I allowed myself to become lost.' She is moving in the shadows, circling him like he's prey._

_He thinks they're talking about different things again, and just like that the screen flickers and for a split-second he sees the inside of an elevator and her downcast face as the doors close behind him. By the time he had realised what she meant, the moment had passed and she had put up her walls again._

_A questions falls unbidden from his lips. 'Do you ever think about soulmates?'_

_He feels her breath on his neck and leans back just a fraction into her touch. She laughs, but it echoes emptily in the silent room. The elevator has been replaced again by the footage of the ship and he feels a sense of dread that he can't explain._

'_I do not know what to think anymore, Tony.' She whirls away to stand in front of him, facing the screen, and she's wearing __**that**__ emerald dress. He blinks, and she's dressed in black, with enough ammo on her belt to take out an entire platoon._

_Blink… Green dress. Blink… Black shirt. Blink... Skin. Blink… Black shirt._

_He wants so badly to touch her but doesn't want to ruin the illusion (and he's down to one hand, can't afford to lose another). They stand in contemplative silence for a moment. _

'_The rain will make everything clear again,' she whispers, her head bowed._

_He reaches for her (they make excellent prosthetic arms these days, right?) and as his fingers brush her hair (finally!) two things happen._

_Onscreen, the vessel is being invaded by men dressed in black. They search the ship and drag their prize (a bundle shrouded in fabric) overboard into a waiting boat. _

_She bends sharply in the middle like a wilting flower and vanishes from his sight._

_

* * *

_

Reviews are the fuel that keep the writing fire burning...


	3. Copper

_**A/N:** Thanks to the people who reviewed, both through email and through the sites.._

_The next chapter should be up in the next day or so, I'm not entirely happy with this one but can't pinpoint why, and it gets to a point when you just have to stop re-reading them and post. Sigh. __Now entering exam time so updates might be scarce the next week or so – bear with me because once this week's over I'll have little else to do but write (and I'm quite excited about that)…_

_**Disclaimer:** NCIS are not mine, I'm only playing with them and promise to return them when I'm done – hopefully in one piece (and probably in better shape than Aliyah suggests they'll return in September)._

* * *

Wednesday dawns bright and clear, though the wind has a bite to it that makes Tony's scarred lungs ache in protest. Fourteen days, he thinks as he rolls over in bed and blearily checks his alarm clock. Fourteen days since he last saw felt touched heard smelt her.

It's 0537, which means he's had about three hours of sleep. He is at once both thankful and disappointed that he cannot recall dreaming. It's a blessing and a curse, seeing her and knowing it's just his subconscious playing tricks on him. A fitting punishment really.

He wonders suddenly what Kate would say if she were here.

'_What did you expect, DiNozzo?_' his Kate-voice taunts on cue (or at least he thinks it's her voice, he can't really remember anymore), _'Did you think you'd roll over and find her there?'_

He is undeserving of such things (but oh, how he wishes).

* * *

Tony still runs every morning, although it's more an awkward jog with only one arm. He doesn't tell anyone that he drives the half hour between his place and hers and runs the route she used to, finding solace in the thought that her feet once pounded these same sidewalks.

No matter how much he tries to alter his rhythm, his feet pound in staccato time with his heart. _Zi-va zi-va zi-va zi-va…_

Sometimes he runs to remember, others he runs to forget. Today he seems to be running in place. For every step forward, he's moving two steps back. This theory of movement (he thinks of it as DiNozzo physics of motion 101) applies to many things. One forward. Two back. Over and over again as if repeating the same mistakes makes him any less of a fool.

This is what he does, he tells himself, he disappoints, he misjudges, he lets his heart overrule his head. Jeanne. Jenny. Ziva. Countless others who blend together in a whirlwind of regret.

Tony runs until he can't see their faces, hear their voices. He runs until all he can hear is the pounding of his own flawed heart in his ears and the wheeze of his protesting lungs. He runs until his vision is blurred with black spots that are enough of a warning for him to slow down before he ends up out cold on the sidewalk. He sits on the damp grass to catch his breath and not for the first time thinks how badly things have spun out of control.

'_How did we get here?'_

'_I drove.'_

He wonders if she still has the orange hat. She doesn't seem the sentimental type (though he knows she keeps one of his OSU shirts hidden away in her apartment, a memento from _that_ summer), but then if current intel is to be believed, maybe he never knew her at all.

He thinks of her pulling it over her hair, traffic cone orange flaring in the bland bullpen twilight, a vivid symbol of her grief. He wanted to offer her comfort – a touch, a smile, a tousle of her hair, _something – _but he was afraid that if he started he wouldn't be able to stop.

'_Sometimes it makes you smile.'_

* * *

Tony walks out of the elevator into the squadroom, steeling himself for another day of faking it – a much easier task when there's nobody to see through his lies – and the first person he sees is Abby, sitting expectantly at his desk. Gibbs and McGee are elsewhere, something he's suddenly thankful for when he sees the expression on Abby's face.

'Morning Abs,' he says more cheerfully than he feels, tossing his gear behind his desk and wincing as something inside his backpack crunches ominously.

She lifts an eyebrow and he knows she's not fooled for a minute. Perhaps he's just easier to read these days, or less practiced in the art of deception than he'd like to think. He rubs a hand over his chin and feels the roughness there, wishes he'd thought to shave before coming to work.

_(He'd stayed the night at her apartment and forgotten to bring his razor. He was drunk on love and warmth and the smell of her and barely flinched when she pulled out her knife._

'_If you slit my throat, my little knife-wielding ninja, you'll have a hell of a time trying to explain yourself to Gibbs,' he joked, never taking his eyes off the blade. She laughed and ran a gentle hand over his stubble, fingers lingering near his lips. He kissed them briefly and grudgingly offered her his neck, one hand moving to rest on the small of her back. Perhaps sensing his vulnerability, she didn't push him away._

'_No squirming, Very Special Agent DiNozzo,' she teased, and he wanted to gather her in his arms but instead pressed a kiss to her widow's peak and allowed her to shave him, thinking all the while iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou.)_

He shakes off the intrusion of memory like a dog after a bath and perches on the desk next to Abby. 'Want to go to the Royal for drinks tonight? Heck, I'll even invite McGee and the Autopsy Gremlin if it makes you happy.' _I don't want to drink alone_, he finishes silently.

She contemplates this for a moment. 'Can I bring a friend?'

'A special friend? Or a girlfriend – although technically it could be both, and if so, I'll have Probie visit your apartment first to set up the surveillance cameras. Just in case, y'know, this special friend turns into an extra special stalker… or a hot girl. Whichever.'

She doesn't point out what they're both thinking, and he's grateful for that. They all need their moments when they pretend things are normal; even if it means regressing to old and familiar habits. For him, it means pretending that all the world's a stage of women waiting to be played.

'A bowling friend of the non-nun variety. Actually, he's the guy in charge of the shoes, but really he's a med student and he knows how to sign and doesn't seem the crazy stalking type, and it's been awhile since there were two in the coffin, so…' she pauses to breathe and her eyes narrow, 'Congratulations on successfully distracting me, Tony.'

'Misdirection is a talent of mine, or so I've heard,' he says, thinking of a bare assembly room and pain at the hands of a man who is (indirectly) responsible for this whole damned mess.

The elevator announces its arrival with a sharp ding, and he's distracted for a moment as he watches Gibbs and McGee enter the squadroom, but not so distracted that he misses Abby's whispered plea.

'Come visit me as soon as you get the chance. There's something you really, _really_ need to see.'

He blinks and Abby is gone in a whirl of pigtails and clomping boots, leaving only the faintest tang of gunpowder and sweet fruit behind her. It takes all his effort not to get up and sprint after her, but Gibbs is standing in front of him, eyes narrowed, and Tony hopes his face doesn't give away the thump thump thump of his heart.

'You lose your razor, DiNozzo?'

***

She's out there somewhere, doing whatever Mossad operatives do (fighting and killing and interrogating and scheming and he really hopes _not dying_) and he can't change it, and he's caught somewhere between concern and panic that McGeek can't find a trace of her.

All the evidence points to her being implicated in whatever Director David had sent Rivkin to Washington for, and yet his heart still tells him that she was a pawn in yet another family game.

The heart wants what it wants.

* * *

_I'm interested to hear what you thought. My Abby voice is still developing and I'm a bit nervous about how it came out. Constructive criticism is welcomed, flames are not. Thanks for reading! :)_


	4. Ink

_**A/N:** Thank you **so much** for all the lovely reviews!_

_We basically pick up where we left off in the last chapter - it's still Wednesday in this universe. The whole thing ended up being way too long, and there were parts in this that I wasn't happy with but I wanted to post something yesterday. Solution = split chapter._

* * *

McGee barely has time to boot up his computer before the phone rings and they're off to Quantico to investigate a crime scene near the Amtrak station. The LEO's report on the phone that the deceased 'appears to have been the victim of a train strike, but the officers on site can't seem to find all the parts.'

Brilliant, Tony thinks as he jams the NCIS cap over his hair and picks up his backpack, two steps behind Gibbs and one in front of McGee as they head to the elevator. Looks like Abby will have to wait, as much as it kills him to spend another minute wondering what she meant..

'Uh, Tony?' he hears from behind him, 'There's something, um, dripping from the bottom of your backpack. Did you drop it?'

'An excellent deduction, McObservant.' He snaps reflexively, opening his backpack to find an unholy mess and thanking God that his phone and wallet are in his pockets. It reeks of hazelnut and Tony remembers grabbing a handful of flavoured creamers from a coffee shop a few weeks ago (the day before the world exploded, ironically)

'That's what you get for adding all that sugary junk to your coffee, DiNozzo.'

He bites back a sarcastic reply and shoves the pack into a plastic bag once they get to the van. Nothing in there that he needs anyway (except his keys), just interview notes and pencils and the other crap that accumulates when you're the kind of person that avoids cleaning like the plague (and he_ really_ should have come up with a new analogy by now but 'like death' is all he can think of and that hits even closer to home).

He remembers as they're pulling into the station (the car park is full of marked vehicles and uniformed personnel and Ducky's van – how did Palmer beat them to the scene?) that the infamous California photos were in the bag. It's fitting that they, like everything else, have been ruined by his own stupidity.

There's no time for self-pity as Gibbs begins to bark orders on autopilot. 'McGee – photos. Da-' There's an uncomfortable silence for a microsecond before he recovers, 'DiNozzo, liaise with the LEO's, figure out what parts are missing and get searching.'

Tony knows that if he protests, Gibbs will find an even less desirable job for him, so he bites back a shudder and goes to find Detective Webb and his list of parts.

Webb turns out to be a woman, and despite smelling like stale sweat and cigarettes herself, she wrinkles her generous nose when he gets close and offers his hand. He's nothing if not polite (it helps people open up, and makes it easier to come down on them like a ton of bricks later). 'Agent DiNozzo, NCIS. That's Naval – '

'I know what it stands for.' She looks him up and down. 'Why do you smell like the inside of a chocolate factory?' He ignores the jibe and pins her with DiNozzo Stare #2 ('_I'm impatiently waiting for your information',_ not to be confused with the more pointed #17, _'I haven't got all day'_).

The detective returns her gaze to her notepad, embarrassed. 'Victim is believed to be Master Sergeant Wilkinson, identifying documents found in close proximity to the body but positive ID unable to be established due to vic's head… missing. We're also, uh, missing the right hand and parts of…'

He tunes out the rest of the grisly list and she gives him a general idea where to start looking, along with a few eager officers as helpers. He can't help but think to himself, 'we're going head-hunting' –old habits die hard – as he lays down the law for the obviously inexperienced officers.

_(watch where you put your feet, don't touch __**anything**__, and if you disturb any evidence, my boss will string you up by your ankles from the nearest tree)_

Slowly they make their way through the grass surrounding the tracks, searching methodically for human remains or anything else that might tell them what happened.

Tony bags chunks of flesh and something that may have been a finger and shudders at the damage done by 480-odd-tonnes of unyielding steel.

It's less easy to avoid the unpleasant jobs when your team consists of only three. He sometimes wonders how he and Gibbs managed in the days before Kate, when the MCRT was a two-man squad. He can't decide whether things really were simpler or he just didn't have as much to think about, but it doesn't make a difference in the end.

The team is in pieces (one is missing, maybe lost) but the cracks were in the foundation long before things started to fall apart. Maybe even as far back as the beginning.

Tony wonders what Abby knows, what she's been hiding. He half-hopes it's a letter from Ziva saying she forgives them, can they ever forgive her, and can she please come back, but he's not as stupid as he acts and he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's about to hear something he won't like. Given that Abby and McGeek couldn't find a trace of her, and that Gibbs has been especially short-tempered lately, he suspects the worst.

He doesn't want yet another thing in his life exposed as a lie.

* * *

He never gets the chance to find out.

By the time they're finished at the scene, a mammoth effort of combing tracks and scrub and cataloguing evidence and bits of what they assume is Master Sergeant Wilkinson, it's approaching sunset.

Gibbs doesn't seem bothered by the fact that they've only had stale sandwiches (courtesy of one of the search teams' wives) and vending machine coffee all day, and orders them to Wilkinson's house (a two-hour round trip) to check for evidence and further leads.

After they've combed the place and collected what they think is relevant to the case, they lock the door behind them and slump into the van seats, weighed down with their thoughts. McGee drives home, a rarity, and most of the trip is spent in silence.

Tony can feel the lack of sleep clouding his vision like a foggy blanket, and finds himself drifting in the half-conscious state somewhere between sleep and waking.

_He cracks an eyelid, feeling as though he's had no sleep at all, and sees sunlight filtering through the window. He wonders why it took so long to get back to NCIS. Surely Probie didn't drive__** that**__ slowly?_

'_Your investigative skills amaze me, Tony.' Teasing voice, laughing voice, achingly familiar voice. He opens his eyes and she's there, sitting on his chest, wearing his favourite shirt. Her hair covers the side of her face and he reaches up to brush it away but she catches his hand and shakes her head slightly and before he knows it she's disappeared. He feels the absence of her like a punch to the gut._

'_Why do you keep doing that?' he asks the empty air. He thinks he hears her laugh but who the fuck knows what he hears or sees or feels. He sure doesn't._

'_I am not doing anything. You are the one who is determined to bring me back, no?'_

_He sighs. 'You were the one who was determined to leave..' He blinks and she's lying next to him, her hand pressed to his chest as though she's making sure his heart is beating. Making sure he's real. She looks tired and frail and her hair still covers her face like it did when she wrestled a serial killer and ended up barely escaping a bullet to the temple. _

_There's something in her eyes that he can't interpret, though it reminds him of the way she looked at him the night she was lost and then found, guilty and then innocent. Like she wants to tell him something important but can't find the right words. _

_Ziva is not a person of words. She is a person of actions, and to see her so still and placid – drained, almost – sends a thread of dread spiralling through him. But it is __**his**__ dream, after all, and there is no cause for worry; for he would never wish her dead. Would he?_

_She runs a hand over her face, sighing. He waits, knowing she's struggling to put the words together just so. She is nothing if not meticulous._

'_I was – we were – being watched. By Mossad, on the orders of my father. Officer Bashan had photographs of you coming to my apartment.' Whatever he expected her to say, it was not that. He is stunned and saddened and angry all at once._

'_That is why… I never gave you a reason because I did not want to place you in danger. And you would have been, if he had considered you a threat.' She doesn't need to say his name._

_It's the most he's heard her say since their summer ended and he wonders how he can be dreaming it if he's never heard it before. He understands now the way Director David looked at him during their 'talk'._

_He recognises the bedroom in her old apartment and wonders why his subconscious is making him relive all of this. Are the days staring at her empty desk not enough punishment for what happened?_

'_You never came to my new apartment, so there is nothing for you to imagine,' she says softly, with a hint of regret. Regret that he never came, or that she never asked? He's reminded of all the things that were already wrong between them when she came back from Israel._

_She is not here and she is not his and this is not real and it's killing him._

'_So this is all in my head then?' _

'_Maybe we both want to be here but cannot be.' He's suddenly furious, though he probably has no right to be._

'_Don't give me that bullshit, Ziva. If you wanted to be here, you would be. You made the choice, remember?'_

_She disappears again and so does the room, replaced by a dimly lit corridor, the smell of tobacco, and a heavily bolted door. He's not sure what the hell is going on, but he wants out of this mindfuck, so he walks toward the door and peers through the bars._

_He sees a crumpled form through the darkness, a curled and pathetic figure with shorn hair and bare, filthy feet. _

'_That is not the way out.' She says softly from behind him, making him jump. He turns and faces her, and for an instant he sees the ghostly shadow of bruises etched on her lovely features. Maybe it's the light. 'I meant what I said, Tony. Not everything is as it seems.'_

'_I should do something to help him,' he whispers, knowing the futility of his statement even as it leaves his lips. Help a nameless stranger, in a nameless place… in a __**dream**__? Stupidity, thy name is DiNozzo._

'_What if he has done things that make him unworthy of salvation? What if he is a killer, a liar, a traitor?' Her voice is so desperate and bleak that he recoils from her and regrets it instantly when he sees how her face crumples. 'Some things are beyond saving,' she adds in a choked whisper, bowing her head._

'_All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing. Wasn't it you that told me that? You may not think I'm a good man, Ziva, but that doesn't mean I can turn my back on people that need my help.' _

_It's part of the reason why he went to her apartment that night – he will never stop trying to protect her from harm. It's what you do for those you love._

_A match flares from inside the room, and there's the sound of a boot meeting flesh and a choked scream. In a blink, they're back in her bedroom and she's pressed up against him, clutching at him like she's drowning and he's her lifeboat. It's so unusual for her to show weakness that he forgets himself and the corridor and wraps her in his arms, rubbing her back in an effort to soothe her._

_He still smells blood in the air, salty and metallic, but right now she is here and she is his and he can pretend that it's real (and it's still killing him, but he's willing to make that sacrifice)._

_She's muttering under her breath in a myriad of languages, all of which sound pained and desperate, and when he tilts her face to look at him she stares through him as if he isn't there at all._

And then he's not.

He's in the passenger seat of the truck and McGee is staring at him oddly. He realises they're parked in the evidence garage and Gibbs is standing outside his window, watching him carefully and mouthing something through the glass.

He can't hear Gibbs with Ziva's words still echoing in his head.

'_Ayudame! Sa'adunee! Ta'azor lee! Pomogi Mnye!'_

His door is wrenched open, and he almost-but-not-quite falls out in his surprise. Reflexes of a cat, he thinks wryly, and then he trips over his own feet and is caught by Gibbs who looks him up and down with narrowed eyes. He doesn't seem pissed, which is a good sign really.

'Go home, DiNozzo. You look like hell.' It's not exactly kind, but Tony is glad because at this point he thinks kindness might just finish him off. Especially kindness from Gibbs.

'Boss, I have to see Abby before I –' He's cut off by the strike of a palm on the back of his head, and now, **now** Gibbs looks pissed. He hands him his plastic bag filled with ruined useless things and leans in close like a cobra ready to strike.

'McGee will take the sample to Abby. You. Home. Now.' Tony was never in the military but he knows an order when he hears one, and despite his lingering curiosity (what _did_ she find?) he knows better than to disobey. He turns, avoiding meeting the Probie's eyes (Senior Field Agent sent home with his tail between his legs like a little dog) and instead of using the elevator to leave the evidence garage he disobeys protocol and walks out the open roller door, up the ramp and into the night.

Tony looks at the stars as he walks to his car and wonders if she can see the same stars in Tel Aviv, or wherever she is in the world.

Her words are still echoing in his head like a movie quote that he can't forget.

'_What if he has done things that make him unworthy of salvation?'_

* * *

_If you managed to get through all of that, surely you have time to leave a quick little review telling me what you thought… Constructive criticism welcomed (though flames will probably be ignored). Any guesses what Ziva is saying?_

(All translations thanks to Google, which hopefully is accurate. I double checked to be sure, but you never know with the internet…)

Before you all go nuts at me for keeping you in suspense, you will find out what Abby has for Tony in the next chapter, I promise!


	5. Crimson and White

_**A/N**__: You know that feeling when you go over and over and over something and you can't quite get it the way you want it? That's this chapter for me. It just seems too… I don't know. Too something, or not enough something else. _

_And during the process of writing this, I wrote three Ziva-centric one shots (Haifa Nights, and two others in the same vein to be posted once I'm done editing) and started another multi-chapter fic (an NCIS/BtVS post-Aliyah crossover, which you can find on my profile if you're a Buffy fan). __Anyway, I'm still not entirely happy, but there's a good chance I'll go insane if I re-read it again. Hope you enjoy, and if you have thoughts on what the 'something' is, please feel free to review. I'm no longer able to be objective about this one._

_(Shutting up now)_

* * *

Tony goes home as ordered, and stares blankly around his apartment as though noticing the mess for the first time. He's not exactly the poster boy for clean and healthy living these days, he thinks wryly as he makes a half-hearted attempt to tidy. He gets about as far as shoving the trash into a bag and putting it near the door, but it looks better already and he'll face the rest tomorrow. Maybe.

He changes the sheets and opens a window in the bedroom to air out the musty smell, and half-rips off his shirt and tie, slipping on an OSU shirt (fitting really, since his place looks like a frat house the morning after rush) and folding himself between the layers of Egyptian cotton like a caterpillar into a cocoon. He watches the clock tick over, green numbers taunting him as they advance toward morning.

Thursday bleeds into Friday and despite Gibbs' orders to rest, Tony spends most of the night tossing and turning. Occasionally something startles him from sleep and he blinks into the shadows, imagining a flash of curls or a familiar laugh, low and dry yet full of mirth and irony. The combination doesn't quite make sense in his muddled head, but it is what it is.

***

'_You have not been listening,' she sighs to him in one of his rare moments of sleep, her tone laced with something he can't name, per se, but it makes him think of cold steel and purloined alcohol and .inevitable. (She was right, just like she usually is, and it burns in his throat.)_

_I think I love you, he wants to say, but that would prove her point, really. 'What am I supposed to be listening for, Ziva? What do you __**want**__ from me?' and just like that, he is blinded by his anger and frustration and goes from loving her to hating her._

_Or is it his own mind that is at fault for dreaming her? He doesn't know anymore._

'_If this is some kind of karmic payback, or a message, will you hurry the fuck up and get it out, because I have better things to do than watch you dance around me and rub my mistakes in my face, Ziva.'_

_And she stutters out something that might be a plea and it might be a prayer and it might be 'stop it, Tony, just stop' but he is beyond caring and beyond coherence and beyond stringing words together. __He's not even sure that the noises coming from his mouth are actual words. There is only anger and pain and it burns as much on the way out as it did on the way in, but oh how good it feels to have it out of him._

_He knows he is pacing as he yells, and is struck suddenly by the role reversal. Normally she is the one who cannot sit still during serious conversations; she fidgets and paces and gestures as though she needs the movement to force the words out (but now she just sits and stares at the floor like she's too tired to lift her head). _

_It only makes him angrier, and if he could throw little knives with each word he would. Even in his dreams he wants to hurt her, to wound so that she's so busy aching she is distracted from his pain. __He's never gone this far before, never really raised his voice to her, and he feels himself slipping into dangerous territory. Perhaps he is his father's son after all._

_She makes a sound that is not so much a sobbing sigh as a gasp torn from a lifetime of grief, and he is shocked back into himself like he's been doused with cold water. Instantly ashamed and not quite knowing why. _

_He tells himself again that it is his dream, and he's not actually hurting her, but a little voice whispers 'wrong, wrong again Anthony' in his mind and, dream or not, he can't stand to see her all broken and bared before him. __So he crouches, grasping her wrists and pulling them away from her face, forcing her to meet his eye in a way he wished he could have done in reality. He holds her gaze and speaks softly like a parent soothing a child. _

'_I won't say I didn't mean it. Whatever this is, it's driving me insane. I see you when I close my eyes, and I see you when I'm awake, and I know we solve puzzles for a living, but all of the cryptic – you're killing me. But I am listening. Tell me what I missed,' he pleads, his thumb tracing the path of her silently spilling tears._

_This time, it is not a cry but a whisper - '__Ayudame! Sa'adunee! Ta'azor lee! Pomogi Mnye!' – and he still has no idea what she is trying to tell him, but at least he has somewhere to begin. He opens his mouth to ask her for a translation ('Language expert, decent cook and super ninja – they teach you those things in the Mossad Scouts?'), but she shakes her head and presses her lips to his (she tastes bitter like regret), and before he can press further she turns to dust in his arms._

_He stands covered in dust, arms missing the warm weight of her, and says her words over and over as if clarity will come with mindless repetition. He chokes on the dust in his mouth and wonders how the hell he ended up falling so hard and when he's going to hit the ground._

* * *

_Life_, he thinks bitterly as he staggers out of bed at 0400 and splashes cold water on his face, _is not at all like a movie_.

If it were, this would be a pivotal moment – the main man having a revelation, or deciphering the coded message, and rushing into action to save whoever needs saving. And he might look a little weary around the edges when doing it, but the makeup people would be on hand to make sure it was only a _little_ weary.

Tony scrutinises himself in the mirror – the sleep-rumpled hair, the two day growth, the almost-purple suitcases (bags is an understatement at this point) under his eyes, and wonders if he's ever looked worse. Given his college experience (three day benders, extensive wet t-shirt research until all hours – and all ladies – of the night), that's a fairly big call to make.

There's a certain formulaic comfort in cinema that just doesn't happen in reality, despite how often Tony likes to play 'guess the movie sequence'. It's all about hope really, when you strip back the façade. If life is just a series of movie quotes, the familiar words of someone else, there is nothing that can surprise him.

There is always a hero (or a noble man or a broken man or a funny man), and he always gets the girl. He might have to go through hell and back to get her, to solve the puzzle or find the bad guy or work through his inner emotional issues, but she's there the whole time – anchoring him and teasing him and giving him something to fight for.

What is a hero without somebody to save? He's just a man who puts himself in seriously fucked-up situations for no reason. And somewhere in the world, a girl is silent, missing and maybe lost and there's not a damn thing he can do about it.

The water has overflowed in the sink and puddled on the floor while he has been lost in thought, and he wonders not for the first time how he hasn't gotten himself killed before now, given his tendency lately to become distracted when something is bothering him.

They all have their ways of dealing with the horror and violence and trauma they see every day. Tony has spent almost nine years on Gibbs's team now, the longest he's ever stayed in one place, and he has seen too much as a Special Agent (and before that a beat cop/homicide detective/PR golden boy) for him to hold any illusions about the world and the people who live in it.

He believes in monsters, or rather that humans have the potential to do more damage to each other than anything with rows of teeth and slimy skin ever could. He took a round in the shoulder on a homicide investigation gone bad a decade ago, and though he vaguely remembers the surprise and the burn and then the stabbing pain, these days it is the small things that hurt the most.

The closing of an aircraft ramp against the hot desert sun, and the look in ice-blue eyes when he asked that _stupid_ question. 'One short?'

It makes the times when people surprise him that much more precious, like seeing a former assassin shed tears over an orphaned and confused child. (How he had wanted to gather her in his arms and soothe her then)

McGee loses himself in fantasy worlds where he can hunt and kill with no recriminations, he plays at being someone else (still hoping one day that Vance will call him into his office and say 'McGee, how do you feel about undercover assignments?'). Tony never tires of teasing him, but secretly sort of envies the junior agent's ability to fictionalise what he lives every day.

It's bad enough seeing it in your dreams, let alone writing about it, and he wonders if the almost crack-comedic element of the book is McGee's way of telling himself it's just too unreal to be true. Maybe he should try it sometime, he thinks, and laughs aloud at the absurdity of his thoughts.

The shrilling of his cell from the kitchen startles him out of the poisonous place in his head, and he rushes to answer it, daring to believe for a split second that it's –

Abby.

He should know better than that.

'Tony! Weren't you listening yesterday? You didn't come and visit me, and I waited and waited and then McGee told me you'd gone home – and by the way, you better have gotten some sleep because if you didn't I'm going to be very upset – and I tried to call you _seven times_ but your phone went straight to voicemail and rule number –'

'Abs!' he half-shouts, knowing that if he waits for a break in conversation he'll be waiting forever. He slaps himself on the back of the head – hard – for breaking Gibbs Rule Number 3 (never be unreachable) and DiNozzo rule Number 13 (Never give Abby a reason to worry if it can be at all avoided).

'Yes sir!' He can almost hear her saluting and it makes him smile, a real smile for the first time since yesterday. He doesn't bother asking if she's in yet, he can hear the familiar whirrs and clicks and beeps of her 'children' warming up and he feels as though for the first time in days he's really part of the world, not just floating around in the same space as people he used to know.

'Give me half an hour. There's something I need to do first.' He flips the phone shut Gibbs-style, not waiting for a reply, and starts lathering up to shave, because it's been almost three days now and he's at serious risk of going native.

If ever there was a 'turnaround' moment, he thinks wryly as his face almost disappears beneath the white foam, this could probably be it.

* * *

_***ducks for cover* **_

_Yes, I PROMISED you would find out what Abby has in this chapter, and not only have I made you wait forever for it, but I've reneged on my promise. I'm a bad, bad author (who had to split the chapter because it was horribly long and the second part feels even less right than the first. It WILL be up tomorrow, or I will eat my hair._

_Still love to hear your thoughts though, even if it is just to yell at me. *grin*_


	6. Yellow

_**A/N**__: My psychology textbook has sat untouched on the shelf despite having a massive exam in two days; I haven't slept in at least 35 hours, and am seriously doubting my own sanity, which may be reflected in the following chapter. I really hope it's worth it…_

_For the record, I know bugger all about computers and programming and McGee things. That's the beauty of internet research, from which I gather that what Abby is talking about might be possible. However, there's a reason why Wikipedia is not an accepted academic reference. _

* * *

His mother forced him to wear a sailor suit at family gatherings and special occasions until he was ten, something Tony still thinks of with no small amount of resentment (and perhaps a little bit of sadness, given how it all turned out in the end).

Granted, his underlying feelings might actually be more attributable to the fact that his mother was a raging lunatic who was a little too fond of her nightly cocktail (her name for it regardless of the time of day said cocktail was being consumed), and less to the indignity of wearing the blue and white outfit like a little doll.

His extended family called him Popeye for most of his formative years. He's fairly sure his Uncle Mario was (and still is) convinced his name actually _was_ Popeye, but the man regularly trumped his mother in the incoherent and somewhat embarrassing stakes, so Tony supposes he can forgive the oversight.

By the time he was old enough to realise that this was not regular barbeque attire, he was also old enough to know that something was not quite right with his mother, that her vomiting and persistent complaints of back pain, fatigue and lack of appetite were not just a byproduct of her drinking.

Instead of flitting around the backyard like a social butterfly, she sat; yellowed face tight and drawn, in a white wicker chair, clutching her drink like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth. The only time she smiled was when she caught a glimpse of the blue and white cotton.

She straightened his collar and told him he was going to make her proud one day.

He was twelve when she died – '_Pancreatic cancer, inoperable, isn't it a pity,_' his aunts whispered in corners – and instead of putting on the black suit the maid laid out on his bed on the morning of the funeral, he dug through his closet until he found the familiar blue and white, and forced his gangly, growing limbs into it like penance.

He did not cry at the funeral, but he did punch his cousin Rick in the face as he passed him by on the way to drop flowers – yellow roses, they were – on his mothers open grave, and when his father asked why, the only answer Tony gave was 'He said sailor suits were for babies.'

It didn't matter that Tony himself hated the suit, he wore it because it had made his mother smile (once upon a time).

As a man, he has fashioned his own suit, not of blue and white but of movie quotes and wisecracks and an air of confused incompetence. Those who truly know him (and you could count them on one hand) know that this could not be further from the truth (but they play along anyway), and those who don't are instantly put at ease. If they need to be lured, he will reel them in and hold up his catch proudly as if to say '_look what I did._'

He makes them smile, and it is worth the price.

* * *

The sun has only just begun creeping over the horizon as Tony enters Abby's lab, having bypassed the deserted bullpen and come directly here. He hovers in the doorway for an instant, because he has a gut feeling that he is not going to like what he is about to hear.

His gut is usually right, and right now it is churning.

"Tony!' she cries like a child at Christmastime, and you would never know that she only saw him yesterday the way she squeezes him. 'You shaved! And showered! Not that you smelled bad or anything, it's just that… well, after awhile, everybody gets a little musty. And while we're on the subject of smells, I found a code smell on the laptop we recovered from Ziva's apartment.'

She might as well have been speaking Swahili, but he knows this is her process, so he just watches and waits. Seconds tick by and there's no explanation forthcoming.

'This is the part where you ask what I'm talking about, and I give you a long string of information, and then you cock your head to the side – yes, just like that – and say "Abs, I'm a phys ed major, dumb it down".' She doesn't wait for him to oblige, just circles the table where the charred laptop sits (he wonders why it is here and not in some Mossad spy lab in Tel Aviv) and shakes her pigtails as though clearing her head.

'Well, we found emails from Rivkin to Ziva, supposedly sent to her NCIS email account – a very secure, highly encrypted email account, I might add. Though if McGee can crack the CIA, I suppose anything is possible. Anyway – what we didn't find were emails sent from Ziva _back to_ Rivkin, and you would think that there would be, if she really was dating…'

She catches a glimpse of his face, '… not important. So I took a closer look at the emails, and found something hinky.' A line of complicated-looking letters and numbers flashes up on one of her computer screens and she points at it with the straw of her Caf-POW. 'It's a code smell – a replica of another code. And it shouldn't be there, because it's like when you write a report – nobody wants to read the same paragraph twice in a row. Or in this case, six times. It's sloppy, and it takes way longer to finish. So I checked each part of the code, and voila!'

A smaller window opens onscreen, and she looks at him expectantly. ' It's not sloppy coding – it's stinky, in an I-smell-a-rat kind of way. In this case, a rat named Rivkin.'

Five years with McGee and it still means nothing to him. 'Abs, is there a point to this?'

'Rivkin didn't send Ziva an email. He sent her email program a bug. It allowed him – or someone else – to access her email through a backdoor and add messages, including specific time stamps. With this bug, anyone could plant messages about anything, all on one day, and make it look like they'd been communicating for months!'

And it dawns on him then, though he's not sure why this was _so_ important that he's in the lab at the ass crack of dawn. 'So someone planted the emails to make us think she was in on whatever Rivkin was ordered to do… to make us believe she was a traitor.'

'Gold star, DiNozzo,' comes a voice from behind him, and he's somehow not surprised that Gibbs is here just at the right time as always. 'But you're still not asking the right questions.'

Tony thinks for a moment, then frowns. 'Can you tell when the emails were planted?'

'I don't get all those job offers for nothing, Tony,' Abby says huffily, but she's smiling. 'The emails were planted the morning that Ziva's apartment was blown up. And here's the other thing – there's no reason for the same codes to be on the laptop _and_ on Ziva's email, unless…'

'Unless the owner of the laptop – the dead agent – was being bugged as well.' Tony interjects, his face stony. 'Or _Rivkin _was. Mossad set him up. And Ziva. And us as well.' And Tony wants to smack himself for all the times he'd entertained the thought that Ziva had betrayed them from the beginning, but Gibbs beats him to it.

It's the first time Tony has ever seen his boss deliver a headslap to himself. 'Boss?'

Gibbs looks behind him and then shuts the door. 'Don't you get it, DiNozzo? Someone wanted us to think she was a traitor. Rivkin is sent to Washington, on the Director of Mossad's orders. Told to stay with Ziva, maybe to pretend he was in love with her, maybe not. I don't know. He dies,' –and Tony is thankful for Gibbs's choice of words- ' they blow up her apartment to hide the evidence that backs up your story. Eli David requests our presence in Tel Aviv, tells Vance some cock-and-bull story about ordering Ziva to kill her brother to gain our trust, knowing Vance would pass it on soon enough...'

This tidbit about Ari is news to Tony, but it actually explains a lot, and he doesn't want to interrupt Gibbs who is clearly on a roll. Except he's not, because he stops and stares at Tony like there's something else that needs to be said. And there is.

It turns out that Tony's gut was churning for a reason, and it isn't at all the reason he expected. An email from Ziva to Abby saying she never wanted to see him again, that she was done with NCIS – now that, he'd expected. But not this.

He doesn't know what's worse, the thought that she hates him and remained in Israel because of this, or the thought that she's out there somewhere unaware of the games that are being played, with her as the pawn. He's fairly sure Mossad don't fuck around when it comes to getting the job done. Ziva herself has proven that.

'Someone doesn't want us to come looking for her.'

'And why might that be, DiNozzo?' It's not said unkindly, but softening the blow doesn't make it hurt any less.

He has a fair idea, and suddenly he can't speak because the world is spinning and it turns out that McMuffin on the way into NCIS was a bad, bad idea, because it's no longer in his stomach, it's in Abby's trash can. Tony spits; rinses his mouth and when he straightens up Gibbs is staring at him like he's never seen him before.

And the words flow back to him like someone's taken a knife and carved them into his flesh. _Ayudame! Sa'adunee! Ta'azor lee! Pomogi Mnye!_

His voice is not his own when he speaks. 'Boss: _Pomogi Mnye_. That Russian?'

'Well, yeah, DiNozzo. It means "Help me".'

'What about _ayudame? Sa'adunee?'_

Abby turns, types, looks back at him and he swears his heart stops. He wants to be sick again but there's nothing left, and finally, _finally_ he understands what Ziva-in-his-dreams was trying to say. _Help me._

And as always, she was right, he has not been listening and now all the pieces have clicked into place and it's Director David, in the library, with the wrench and _oh god oh god_ _**oh god**_**.**

Turns out he was wrong (again) when he said there was nothing left.

* * *

_That night she does not appear in his dreams, but he wakes up thinking he can smell yellow roses._

* * *

**_A/N:_** I don't think there's anything to say, really, except please review, because I'm very very nervous that it didn't live up to expectations.


	7. Steel Blue

_**A/N:** I'm bowled over by all the reviews, and ever so grateful to those who take the time._

_I've had some comments about my strange expressions and such, and would just like to point out that while I'm not quite in Ziva's league, I'm from Australia, and as such follow a different set of rules for things like spelling, measurement systems and word usage. For the purposes of authenticity, if you notice anything odd word-wise (e.g. "tonnes" instead of "tons"), feel free to point it out. Single vs double quotation marks has already been covered (single is standard in my part of the world), and will be changed from this chapter onwards._

_Onwards and hopefully upwards. :-)_

* * *

A world away, in the half-dark between night and morning or morning and night - she's not sure which, really, except that like her, the light is caught somewhere between one place and another – Ziva comes back to herself, and her first thought is that she wishes she hadn't.

Swollen lips draw back from teeth as the pain (ever-present and unyielding) floods her senses, but she does not cry out. They listen at the door always, waiting for the signs that she is breaking, and she will not give them that satisfaction.

Power, in whatever form she can wield it in her present state.

Sometimes, she blinks through the pain and imagines she can see him in the corner of the foul little room, hazy and unclear through the fog that grows thicker by the day. He whispers words through the screaming of her own blood pulsing through her veins; and sometimes they soothe_: shhh; it will all be okay; iloveyou. _Green eyes smile at her and she floats, imagining clashing lips and tender hands.

She wishes she could be as hopeful as he, but he's not the one who feels the blows.

Other times they bubble and froth bitter from his mouth, searing her skin. _You left_, he says with ice in his eyes, _you pressed a gun to my chest, and your eyes said you wished I had died instead; isn't karma a bitch?_ It breaks her more completely than any boot or fist or club ever could.

She tries to tell shadow-Tony that she's sorry, that the mistake was not his but hers, always hers; that this is why she vowed never to be taken alive.

Her vow was only ever for to spare the person who would open the box, and how _ironic _that once upon a time it was her father she wanted to save from the grinding of glass into fresh wounds. Given how she came to be here in this place, where old blood stains the floor and the air smells of bitter tears and useless pleas, it would probably come as no surprise.

No, now it is for Tony that she fears, imagining him pacing and flailing and raging in the shadows, and she cannot help seeing him any more than she can protect herself from burns and blows and the cold slice of a knife through tender flesh.

There are many things about her – and Mossad – that he does not know, but he knows enough about her life outside of NCIS, and she prays he will never find out exactly how she's spent the last eleven days. She would rather them remember her as strong and proud and fearless, than this shivering mess of bones and blood and bruises.

She would rather they think her a traitor, a coyote in sheep's clothing, a mole like Lee - if only to spare them from the truth.

If only, if only. The words taste like blood on her tongue. She spits, but they remain.

If only she had made the call requesting Michael's extraction when she first sensed the depths of his despair (perhaps his end would have been the same anyway, but it would not have come with such a price). If only she had trusted the right people, trusted Gibbs and Tony enough (for they at least had given her no reason to doubt them) to tell them what was happening.

If only she had gotten on that plane: though to openly defy her father would be to sign her own death warrant. Irony burns, like cigarette butts ground into golden skin.

Ziva does not believe in heaven and hell, does not believe in anything much these days, and whether or not one's head ends up sealed in a courier box after their death makes no difference to their fate, when it's all said and done. But she understands all too well how it affects those who are left behind.

She is many things; a spear, a daughter, an assassin, an investigator, a friend and once-lover. The deadly queen and a pawn in the games of men. Destroyer of hopes and lives and hearts.

Above all, she is not optimistic about her chances of survival.

There once was a good man, a kind and laughing man who might have loved her once, and trusted her to watch his eight. "_Six, Zee-vah,"_ his voice echoes in the room, or maybe it's in her head, "_you're reverting again_." If only she had told him how she felt, back in the days when everything was… not simple, but at least _less_ complicated.

There is no time to dwell on the impossibilities of saying those words as her hand is crushed beneath the weight of an unforgiving foot.

Fireworks explode in her vision as she nearly bites clear through her lip in an attempt to stop from screaming . She fails, and it echoes around the room as he grinds his boot over her fingers. Bone crunches and all she can think of is that she will have to learn to shoot with her other hand, and she didn't hear the door or his shuffling feet or the familiar and hated cough.

She heard nothing but Tony's voice and just look where it got her.

"Tell me everything you know about NCIS," her captor growls for the thirty-seventh time, and she lifts her stubborn and bloody chin and spits in his face, because she does not care at this point how it ends and whether she lives or dies, she just wants an _end_.

But not like this, she thinks a second later as fists pummel damaged flesh and hands tear at tattered clothing, stripping her bare and grasping pinching grunting; it was not meant to end like _this_ –

(She wonders if one day Ducky will start a story with "I once knew a girl from Israel…" and thanks God that at least she has spared him the horror of seeing her cold dead body laid out before him like an offering)

She breathes and _oh the pain_, the pain, of grinding ribs and bruised throat and aching failing traitorous heart. She gropes blindly at her neck, seeking comfort, and remembers too late the sting of breaking chain.

Her last conscious thought as she is spread out like spoils for the taking is of them and there and _him. _

"_Nothing is inevitable," _she had said to him once upon a time, surrounded by muted light and cold steel and the acrid smell of decay and regret. She should have known better - she who was baptised by fire in another world, where fathers lie and sisters die and a daughter sings low and sweet over the body of a son.

Death is inevitable, and it beckons.

* * *

Far away, a man sits in a deserted bullpen at midnight and wonders what other favours will need to be called in to fix this, to save the girl. Three days after Abby's discovery, and things are beginning to fall into place. He knows how these things work, and it's not happening as quickly as he'd like, but it's _happening,_ and that's something at least.

He has sent Tony home to get whatever rest he can, told him to pack a bag and be ready for the call. The problem is, Gibbs himself is still waiting, and it was a long shot at best to call in this particular favour from an old Desert Storm buddy, now an international aid worker in Africa. From taking lives to saving them, he thinks. Hopefully saving one more tonight, though the phone remains silent and it's been more than twenty-two hours.

He hopes it doesn't mean the difference between life and death.

After so many years, there are no shortage of people who would be willing to help if necessary (and how it would surprise his team if they knew just how many). They are friends, lovers, family of the missing and the murdered, people with connections and money and ways to get the job done.

A life for a life, he thinks as he drains the last bitter drops of his coffee and tosses the empty cup into the trash.

Other promises of assistance should he ever need it come from people he's worked with from the numerous federal agencies and law enforcement offices in and around DC (and everywhere else). Agencies that he despises on principle, not because of the personnel (though there are a few notable exceptions).

Hell, he figures by now even the SEC-NAV owes him a favour or two, though he won't be collecting from him for this particular snafu.

Even after so many years with almost nothing to bargain for, there is a limit to the number of IOU's one man can collect and cash in, in only four years. His team are the best there is, but they also have a tendency to get themselves into all sorts of trouble.

"Need to know basis," he had told DiNozzo when the shock faded. "I'll make some calls, gather some intel behind the scenes. Keep it together," he warned with an uncharacteristically meaningful look that said _I know what you're doing to yourself_. And he does, without DiNozzo even having to say the words.

His Senior Field Agent has smashed Rule #12 to pieces and though he has no concrete proof, he has spent the last three years pretending he's not wholly entertained by their casual flirting and banter. If it's obvious enough that McGee can see it and write about it, they'd have a snowball's chance in hell of Gibbs missing it.

That Gibbs sees everything, knows everything, anticipates everything – this is mostly legend, but most legends have a basis in fact.

He knows the difference between lies and obscurity of truth (and that third category he likes to call 'too stupid to figure out what's right in front of them'), and he knew from the moment she stopped him at the airport that the decision had already been made.

Her ultimatum was only for the benefit of those watching, a sound byte that was out of sync with the visual (her eyes always say what she cannot put words to). Eli David is sharp; there's no doubt about that; but Gibbs doubts whether he was sharp enough to realise that his daughter even then suspected something amiss within Mossad.

_If Tony could fool him,_ he thinks, and fleetingly feels guilty for the immediate - _anyone could_ – that follows, because he should know better by now than to fall for DiNozzo's act. And speaking of games… there's the faintest scuff of a shoe on carpet behind him.

"I didn't realise you were working an active case, Gibbs." He feels a tiny bit of satisfaction at the expression on Vance's face. The Director wanted to surprise him, but he's not as quiet as he thinks.

"Did I say I was, Leon?" he responds, thanking McGee for spending hours teaching him how to instantly display a fairly innocuous file on the computer screen. Two buttons to push for an instant cover story.

"It's past midnight, Jethro. Surely you have something else to do other than sit here in the dark. Somewhere to be perhaps?" The undertone is subtle, but it's there nonetheless, and Gibbs is instantly alert.

"Got something in mind?" he says quietly and casually, testing the waters.

"I hear Israel is warm this time of year."

"It's warm in the desert all year, Leon. Besides, I didn't care much for the coffee," _Or the company_. He looks Vance up and down while the Director is trying to sneak a look at what's on his monitor. The man is fidgeting, clearly nervous, and if he were a suspect it would only take one little push…

"Something else I can help you with, Director?"

Gibbs wonders how a man can be such a mystery and yet so easily readable, as conflicted brown eyes meet steely blue. There's something here that he's missing, and for the life of him he can't figure out what it is. Must be getting old.

"You understand that she can't come back to NCIS without Mossad's approval, don't you?" Vance says suddenly in the silence, eyes darting over to the still-empty desk.

"This about those personnel files; Leon, because if it is I've told you -- "

"She's not coming back, Jethro," and there's something in the way he says it that makes the hair on the back of Gibbs's neck stand on end, and for the first time in awhile he has to consciously fight to keep his face a blank canvas. He knows now where Vance stands in all of this, and it only took five words. His gaze does not falter and he does not move for a second, as if waiting for confirmation. Vance nods slightly, and breaks his gaze.

"You know something I don't, Director?" It's a gamble and a way out, because Gibbs doesn't need to hear it out loud but is suddenly wondering if Vance can say it.

"No more than you, Gibbs," is the reply, but his eyes are pointedly aimed down and to the left. He bends in close enough for Gibbs to smell the mint on his breath. "Got that name for your 'Storm buddy who wanted a good fishing spot. Tell him to contact Saleh, of Berasole, the next time he's looking for a catch in the Red Sea. He's the expert." He's gone almost as silently as he arrived, looking as though a weight has been lifted.

Gibbs doesn't allow himself to hope; in fact he tries to pretend the conversation never happened, but he does struggle his way onto the internet and type in 'Berasole'. (Rule Number 3: Never believe what you're told - double check)

Half an hour later, Rick calls and gives him the exact same information, though delivered far more colourfully and ending as always with a Corps quote (today it's the relatively tame '_Heaven won't take us, and Hell is afraid we'll take over'_). Hope flickers and flares despite his better judgement, and he dials a number with boneless fingers. A chance to save another almost-daughter is at hand.

'Gear up, DiNozzo. We've got a plane to catch.'

* * *

**A/N**:_ I felt the need for a little bit of ninja. It turned into a LOT of ninja. Sorry about that. I figured it was about time we heard something from Ziva's part of the world. Tony's dreams don't count, cos while I can't deny there's a connection between them on the show, I've never actually said that she's dreaming them too… _

_In Chapter 8: The remainder of Team Gibbs get together to plot their next move, Vance and Eli have an interesting conversation, and of course... the moment you've all been waiting for (not to give it away or anything)!!_

_Reviews are much appreciated. Thanks for reading!_


	8. Silver

_**A/N: **__I have no words, just shaking nervous fingers__**….**_

_Thanks to all the wonderful people who review, you have no idea how flattered and awed I am by your lovely words. It makes me wonder why I stopped writing for so long in the first place!_

* * *

_  
Toto, we're sure as freaking hell not in Kansas anymore_, Tony thinks as he squints into the harsh African sunlight.

He's fairly sure after 18-odd hours of travelling (wedged into tiny seats between Gibbs and a random assortment of strangers) that he doesn't exactly smell like roses, and the sweat he feels forming between his shoulder blades won't be helping matters any.

He wishes he'd thought to pack some of those scented 'wet wipe' things Kate used to use when cases called for long overnight stints in the squadroom or in the field, but there hadn't been time.

Gibbs had said the magic words, and minutes later a cab was screaming its way toward Dulles, a fistful of notes in the driver's sweaty hand and an edgy passenger in the backseat. He's not sure who's funding this little non-vacation (or even if going on a secret and decidedly off-book trip to Africa, to rescue someone who various government departments consider a threat to national security, is an acceptable reason to claim holiday pay), but he's fairly sure they're not travelling on the taxpayer's dime.

Gibbs really hasn't been forthcoming with information – he's not a talker at the best of times, and this is _definitely_ not the best - and Tony knows better than to push too hard.

Planes, trains, and automobiles later, and Tony still doesn't really know where they are exactly. If the blistering heat is any indication, they've been dropped straight into Hell. He shades his eyes and squints out the window of the dilapidated cab, frowning as he takes in his surroundings.

Hell looks suspiciously like Italy.

"Boss? You sure we got off in the right country?"

Gibbs is tense beside him, and that's never a good sign. Neither of them have slept in who knows how many hours, and he knows Gibbs isn't carrying, which always makes him edgy. They couldn't play the "Federal Agent" card to get their guns through security in case it raises the wrong flags; and airport security don't look kindly on 'civilians' caught carrying concealed weapons. He's pretty sure that Gibbs will have a backup plan, or at least the address of a decent weaponry shop in the area.

"Eritrea used to be an Italian colony, DiNozzo; half of this city was probably inspired by Roman architecture," Gibbs says under his breath, scanning the crowded streets. The cab swerves to the right to avoid a slow-moving truck, horn blaring, and Tony suddenly misses Ziva's driving as his injured shoulder takes the brunt of the impact, hitting the door hard enough that he bites his lip. He senses rather than sees Gibbs' eyes on him, and fumbles for a distraction.

"Think they have decent coffee?"

"Better than in Israel," Gibbs says dryly, but there's a hint of something else in his tone that Tony can't quite decipher. He seems to be coming out of his funk, though, so Tony presses on.

"Not to be a killjoy, Boss, but do they have what we're after somewhere round here, or are we just making a pit stop?" It's strange to speak of her so impersonally, but he's not giving anything away, not even to a random cab driver who may or may not speak English. _And may or may not be telepathic_, he thinks as the driver's eyes meet his in the rear-view mirror. _Guess that answers the English question_.

"We're going to see a man about a horse, DiNozzo."

Tony hopes that's Gibbs-speak for "we're meeting a contact," because he's not keen to repeat his Saddle Club experience.

The cab pulls into a street with a screech of brakes and Tony makes a grab for the 'oh shit' handle, but apparently it's not standard equipment in African cabs because his fingers grasp uselessly and slide and he ends up plastered against the damn door again anyway.

"Saddle up," Gibbs says from the other side of the window, and Tony feels his cheeks clench at the memory the phrase invokes. He steps out into a melting pot of heat and sound and colour and smell and quickens his step to catch up with his boss, who has disappeared into a hotel that looks about ten years past the 'fleabag' stage and well on the way to 'condemned'.

Tony really, _really_ hopes Gibbs knows what he's doing.

* * *

A world away, four heads are bent together over cold glinting steel, united by whispers and secrets and loyalty to the ones they love. There are no questions about consequences or suggestions of code names; they are beyond that now. They are individual puzzle pieces that fit together to make a whole, and a piece is missing, and that is all that matters.

" I've been going over the data we retrieved from the laptop, and I found information that suggested Rivkin was gathering intel on an abandoned mine located in Somalia, specifically in the Puntland province. The region has been identified as a potential source of…"

"If Gibbs were here, he'd be saying 'get to the point' right about now." Palmer interjects in an undertone, and looks surprised when the attention turns from McGee to him. He holds up his hands defensively. "What? He would!"

McGee eyes him but does as suggested. "I did some, uh, unauthorised exploring…" They all grin at his choice of words, "…in Mossad's data repository and found records of a highly classified, black ops mission that took place, um…" papers shuffle, " three days ago, in the same area as the mine. According to the records, a team of twenty-nine Mossad officers were sent orders to report with full combat gear to headquarters in Tel Aviv _thirteen_ days ago, for a-"

"Why is Gibbs in Eritrea if Ziva's in Somalia?" Palmer asks, brow wrinkled in confusion.

Gibbs isn't here to do it, so Abby deals out the slap, glaring at Palmer so fiercely he lets out a little squeak and then closes his mouth with a snap. Through all this, Ducky waits and watches as the children squabble, knowing that this is their process and now is not the time to interfere or placate. They're all too tightly wound. He waits for Abby to drop the glare and then prompts gently.

"Timothy?"

"Twenty-nine seems like overkill for a reconnaissance mission, which is how it was listed officially according to Mossad. I had to write a program to look deeper into the data bank, and I'm fairly sure the information I got was from Director David's personal computer; but… unofficially, it was an elimination and assault mission. And they sent _metsada_ operatives as part of the team. Which means…"

"That that slimy _rat_ Director David sent his own daughter into a life-or-death situation, again!!" Abby paces and her pigtails bounce jauntily around her face, completely at odds with her words. "I could kill him, if anyone would let me get close enough, which they wouldn't because I'm sure he's surrounded by goons and has killer skills like his daughter, even if he does spend all his time sitting behind his desk ordering other people _to their death_!"

A weary old doctor's heart could break at the difference between two silver-haired men, one who barely had the chance to know his daughter and the other who throws his away like a candy wrapper. And yet… and yet… there is something that they are not being told, and it falls to him to say it aloud.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Timothy," Ducky interrupts more calmly than he feels, "but did you not say that the operation took place in Somalia? Why then, as Mister Palmer has said already, are Jethro and Tony in Eritrea?"

"Because Ziva never made it to Somalia." There's silence for a moment and the words hang uncomfortably in the air like a laugh in the middle of a funeral. McGee pulls at his collar, shuffles paper and opens and closes his mouth uselessly a few times as if searching for the right words.

"More importantly: someone is trying to hide it. Her name is on the personnel list scheduled for the mission – she was briefed with the other senior team members and assigned a key role – I don't know what exactly – in the, uh, _reconnaissance_; but someone else was read in in her place and filed a report on the success of the operation."

Abby has begun untying and re-plaiting her pigtails over and over with stiff and trembling fingers, and oh the tension in the air. Palmer has flattened his palms on the cold steel and is staring at the space between his fingers as though something has slipped through them (and perhaps it has).

Ducky stares with wise and contemplative eyes at McGee, though the junior agent knows him well enough to see the quiet anger churning behind them. The storyteller has run out of words, and all that he can think of amongst the storm is the sound of gently clinking teacups and the beauty of a shy and thankful smile.

If Gibbs is truth and Tony is levity, he is comfort, and oh how he wishes he could extend that across oceans.

"And… and then there's _this_." The photos drop from nerveless fingers and scatter across the table in no particular order, but Abby is nothing if not thorough, and they are painstakingly labelled; a flip-book of ill omen. Satellite photos – of an ocean and a boat, and then alongside it; another boat, and what is quite obviously (even to Ducky's eyes which are trained to see patterns and stories in bones and tissue and minds) the forcible shift of a limp and shrouded figure from one boat to another.

It needs no explanation, and yet there is so much they need explained, but the boiled bleached bare bones of it makes him shudder and touch Abby's hand with his own. He sometimes finds himself losing his faith in the world, but has unwavering faith in some things.

He has faith in a girl from Israel that he once knew, who sat at this very table with him and found comfort in the tales of an old man, despite whether or not she knew she was seeking it. He has never met anyone with such a will to survive and overcome despite all odds, and he has to believe that it will get her through this like it has borne her through too many trials in too few years.

Most of all, Ducky has faith in Gibbs.

* * *

MTAC is dark and silent, save for a waiting man and a rainbow screen, which hums, blinks white for a second, and then focuses. Onscreen, the white-haired and weary king sits on his throne, straight-backed and stony-faced. His empire is hovering on the brink of ruin, but he has more important things to save.

"Shalom, my friend. Did you relay the message onto Agent Gibbs?"

"Shalom, Eli." Vance does not waste precious time asking about his friend's health or wellbeing. It is clear enough from his heavy yet hopeful tone.

"Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo arrived in Asmara four hours ago and my source tells me they are on route to Berasole at present. I have informed the relevant people of their imminent arrival, and they are in place and waiting."

"You can trust your people to remain undetected until the right moment? From what I have been told, we will only get one chance at extraction." Eli sighs, and suddenly looks not like a formidable Director, but a broken and grieving father.

"Saleh has a full team on standby, and all the necessary equipment," Vance says quietly, biting back the urge to offer assurances or useless platitudes. Eli – much like himself – is a realist to the end, and despite how much the father needs a moment of comfort, the Director in him will never accept it.

Instead, he focuses on the necessities.

"It will be a matter of urgency that all concerned are removed immediately from the region, to avoid accusations or reprisals. They will be transported via helicopter to the North Base Camp at El Gorah, as soon as the medical team give the okay."

On-screen, Eli remains still, though after so many years of friendship it is obvious that he is relieved. "I know the base well – it used to be one of our own. I cannot thank you enough, Leon. I will be seeing you soon, yes?"

"My daughter may never forgive me for missing her piano recital, Eli. She is still too young to understand the demands of the job. But nevertheless, we will meet again soon."

"They grow up too quickly, my friend – savour the moments while you still can." Confident fingers twist together and falter, and the man onscreen looks infinitely sad for a moment before the mask returns. "We will talk more about the future, and Phase Two, when we meet."

"We will find them, Eli."

A bloodless and chilling smile. "They should pray that we do not."

The screen flickers and fades and two men on opposite sides of the world are left thinking of all the things they missed.

* * *

A world apart, two daughters breathe and move and dream, unaware for the moment of the regrets of their fathers.

One practices her scales with sure, deft fingers and dreams of applause and roses and proud smiles. She imagines her father's face in the crowd, glowing with pride. She is young and innocent and has much to learn.

Another lies curled on cold stone like a question without an answer, shorn and shaken and bloodied, while a sneering man hovers over her – ready to take his turn. Lips move almost silently and urgent words drift up through the dusty air.

The man pauses, hands stilling at his belt, and bends closer, closer, smug in the assumption that she is spent; broken beyond action and finally willing to trade her knowledge – not for her life, but for a quick and merciful death.

He is wrong; and then suddenly he is wrong and dead, staring sightlessly at her as she stares almost-sightlessly back. From the corner of the room, shadow-Tony laughs and applauds, and bruised lips stretch minutely in a smile as she waits. Power in whatever form she can wield it, she thinks bitterly.

She is young and not-so-innocent and has_ nothing left to lose._

* * *

_So, I know I promised that this was going to be THE chapter, but it occurred to me that there was still a couple of things to set up/explain first. Before everyone starts cyber-stoning me, the next chapter will be up by Friday barring fire, flood (highly likely considering how much rain we're getting) or spontaneous laptop combustion. _

_Thanks for reading – I'd love to hear your thoughts… :)_


	9. Rainbows and Fireworks

_**A/N**__: In my own defense, it's only 3 hours past the 'Friday' deadline in my time zone…_

_I won't waste time with notes, because I get the sense that people have been waiting eagerly for this chapter… though I could be wrong… teehee. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll get back to you :)_

* * *

Gibbs and Tony arrive in Berasole, a tiny fishing village on the Red Sea, hungry, and beyond the point of exhaustion. Tony would give his left arm for a hot shower to relieve his aching muscles – and considering the arm in question is the source of most of his pain, it would probably be a fair trade. He'd still have his shooting arm, after all.

Gibbs has that look about him that makes Tony think he'd give _both_ arms for a coffee.

The dusty van pulls up in front of the only reliable-looking structure in the whole village, and despite the thatched roof and conspicuous absence of armoured guards and barbed wire, it practically screams 'military'.

He's not sure what to make of that, and realises for the first time that despite his colourful traditional clothing and steel-wool beard, their driver moves in a scarily familiar way. And damn if it doesn't make the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

Gibbs falls in beside him without a sound, and they watch as the man who introduced himself only as Kasim disappears into the building.

"Boss…" he starts, only to be cut off before he can put words to his sudden misgivings.

"I know, DiNozzo. Keep your wits about you."

They wait under the blistering sun, tense and silent and Tony wishes he had his Sig. He's pretty sure Gibbs has his knife, but it's not exactly the time to ask for proof, and he's not sure he wants to know if the answer is 'no'.

The irony of Gibbs potentially breaking one of his own rules would be funny, except he has no idea if they're waiting for the welcome party or a shitstorm of epic proportions, so he can't summon a laugh.

"Are you lost, gentlemen?" a voice asks from behind them, and they spin to see an elderly dark-skinned man leaning on a cane, dressed in a shirt of so many different colours that even Magnum would have to look away. A resident of a random fishing village in the middle of nowhere, who speaks perfect English?

No, that's not suspicious _at all_.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Mohammed Saleh, the mayor of this village." Recognition sparks – Saleh is the name of their contact. "I am sure my son is anxiously awaiting your arrival."

_Keeping it in the family_, Tony thinks. As if signalled, Gibbs turns back toward the building, and Tony follows suit. The man approaching is clean-shaven and dressed in a clean white shirt and khaki trousers, and does not exactly smile at them, but he doesn't look hostile either. The old man chuckles behind them. "My son, you still cannot keep your feet from betraying your presence."

"Hush, Abi," he says gently in accented English. "Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo, I presume?" It's not really a question, but Tony nods anyway. "I am Sefu Saleh. I realise you have had a long journey, but we are pressed for time and have much to discuss. If you will follow me please, the others are waiting inside." He eyes Tony's sling-wrapped arm as they walk, a look of consternation on his face.

"There a problem, Mister Saleh?" Gibbs asks, not bothering to imitate the man's accent, and _that_ makes Tony smile.

"I was not told that one of your party was injured. That may change our plans somewhat."

Tony's not sure he likes the sound of that, but at least the man seems amenable to their presence and purpose. He has to duck to avoid banging his head on the ridiculously low door, so he enters the room with his head down and then blinks in surprise. Other than himself, Gibbs and Saleh, also present in the room are their silent driver, who is now dressed similarly to their host (and conspicuously missing a beard), and two other men.

The latter are dressed in full combat attire, though they are missing the insignias that would normally denote their unit and country, and they wouldn't look out of place on a downtown Washington street. It's not what Tony was expecting.

The blond man steps forward and extends his hand. "Agent Gibbs, Agent DiNozzo – I'm Jack Sykes, and this is Shmuel Levi. You've met Kasim, I take it? I'd say it was a pleasure to meet you both, but I'm withholding the sentiment until we get through the next eight or so hours and get the hell out of Dodge safely. No offense, Sefu."

There's silence in the little dusty room as Gibbs sizes up the unfamiliar man with a too-familiar accent, and Tony just blinks and stares, all words lost amongst the roaring in his head. An American and an Israeli (or so he assumes); an African who moves like a predator, moves _like someone else he knows_, and Saleh. No ranks, no mention of affiliation, and Tony just has _no clue_ what the deal is here.

His heart speeds up and it beats to a cadence of _zi-va. zi-va. _

Finally, Gibbs extends his hand, though from Sykes's wince it isn't an overly friendly handshake. They sit, and Saleh leans forward intently, his hands tented on top of his desk. The air is thick with unspoken questions and confusion, and above everything, a sense of urgency.

"Let me explain how this is going to work."

************

It takes over an hour to outline the details of the operation, and as the others begin to discuss extraction plans, Tony feels his anger build to a level that he can no longer restrain.

Ignoring Gibbs's warning glare, he shoots from his chair and stalks from the stifling room, the heat outside only fanning the flames of his irritation. Inside, the sound of voices dips and resumes, and he leans against warm concrete and breathes ragged breaths. He lets himself slide down the wall until he's sitting in the dirt, wholly unbothered by the damage to his clothes.

"_Agent Gibbs, you will wait until Team Alpha gives the go-ahead from inside, then move in with Team Bravo and the medic. Operatives will cover you both at all times, though you will be provided with a weapon for safety. Get in. Get what we came for. Get out." Saleh gives Tony a sideways glance before casually dropping the bomb._

"_Agent DiNozzo, you will wait at the chopper with the extraction team." _

After that, he stopped hearing anything else but the blood pounding in his ears. _It's dinner theatre for an audience of one_, he once said to her bitterly, ignoring her expression because he was too angry to think of anyone but himself. _When does the curtain go down?_

He feels rather than hears a familiar presence approach, but doesn't bother to raise his head. "Don't be an idiot." Gibbs says softly from beside him, and then they're both sitting in the dirt.

"Boss, I…"

"You what, DiNozzo? You think I wouldn't make the same decision? This isn't about you. Hell, this isn't about me either. I trust you, and I know you'd find a way to get the job done; but right now they see you as a liability. Doesn't mean you're not a good Agent, or a good partner. Just means you've got a busted arm."

Tony feels like he's strapped into that damned C130 all over again. He's watching the ramp close on the Israeli sunshine – _"One short, boss?" _– and there's nothing he can do to take it back and _oh_ how he wishes he could.

"You think Ziva wouldn't kick your ass five ways from Sunday if she knew you were going into a tactical assault situation – and that's what this is, don't be fooled by their talk about excellent odds and surprise tactics and success rates – in your condition? This is no war game, Tony, and even those didn't turn out so well for either of you."

"Not stupid, Boss," he mutters, but the fire is slowly flickering out, because Gibbs has a point. Doesn't mean he has to like it, but nevertheless, he can recognise the truth in the words. Exhaustion hits him like a freight train at full speed, and suddenly, _stupidly_, he wants to sob. There will be time for that later, perhaps, on the other side of dawn.

"What are we going to do now, Boss?"

"The same thing we do every damned day, DiNozzo," Gibbs says a little testily, though Tony knows that the bite to the words stems more from frustration with their situation than anger at his Senior Field Agent.

"Try to take over the world?" he suggests, and winces in anticipation of the slap even as he half-grins and thinks of plotting mice.

And doesn't that just sum up their place in things? They are the mice, played by the King Cat to achieve a yet undefined end. Everything they assumed has just been turned on its head and they are running in place in someone else's wheel.

"We move out at nightfall, gentlemen," Saleh says from above them, and they squint into the fading sun. "Might I suggest a shower, a decent meal and a chance to rest before then?"

Despite himself – or maybe_ because_ of himself – Tony grins. "You guys got pepperoni here?"

* * *

_One would think_, Ziva thinks blearily as she drifts up from the blackness, _that they had not dragged one of their own men – his snapped neck lolling like a cheap marionette – out of here only an hour ago._

There has been no reprisal thus far, and she's both relieved and disappointed about that. He was dragged out by his feet and his startled dead eyes stared blankly at her as his head danced across the floor. In her half-madness, Ziva imagines she can see the trail his body left in the dirt, like a grotesque snail after a storm.

Whatever she has become, her life is worth more than the life of one of their own, which is telling really.

The hated question _("Tell me everything you know about NCIS")_ has been asked forty-four times, and she has told them nothing worth anything. Occasionally, she will offer a statement like "The signage on the toilets is inadequate," or "I find the pine air freshener in the car irritating". They do not like that much, so she only does it when she feels particularly morbid.

She has told them nothing worth anything, and they must know by now that she would die before betraying her American family. She cannot bear to think of Ari, because when she does so he appears and his bitter and biting words cut more effectively than the sharpest knife. _You murdered me_, he whispers in the dark of night, _you could have saved me, you could have stopped it, you betrayed __**me**__, your brother, for a man who left you on the tarmac and did not look back._

She cannot bear to think of Ari because it makes her think of them and there and _him_, and she does not want to imagine their reactions to what she has done, what she has become.

Her thoughts are muddled, and they flicker in her head and fade like smoke before she can catch them and organise them into something she can understand. Things are getting confused more easily the last few days: names and dates and places merging and shifting and blurring, and she doesn't like the feeling.

Something important. Something about dead puppets and snails and dead or alive and _there it is_.

They are gaining nothing of value from her, and yet she is still alive. _You keep them until they have lost their value, and then you dispose of them_, an experienced interrogator told her once when she was young and perfecting her crafts. _Get what you want and then get out. If they will not give you what you want, find someone else who will._

And yet… she breathes still, despite all her best efforts to incite and provoke, and she is under no false illusion that they are showing her mercy. No, not mercy, but…

_Restraint_.

She understands the expression 'lightbulb moment' for the first time, because the word drifts up through the haze and sends fireworks screaming their way through her brain.

They show restraint because she is worth something, to _someone_, alive. It is not about the information, but her, and the only reason to keep a hostage alive is to make someone else pay. "With what", or "who" are pointy questions, all those spinning 'w's poking into the softness and colours. It's just too hard to think about, and the world is getting dark around the edges again…

And yet… something is not right. She is used to the daily routine by now, and the sound their boots make on the floor and the stairs; when they come up and down and why. Used to the voices – harsh and guttural or quiet and deadly.

With nothing to do but listen and float and ache, she catalogues and analyses them like a scientist labelling samples, and something is in the wrong place; a sound that is familiar, but taken out of context in her lab.

_Lab_. Labby. Fireworks fizz and pop in her head, and she thinks of sweet fruit and pigtails and… gunpowder. And like someone has flipped a switch, clarity comes flooding in and Ziva realises what it is that's out of place. Drifting down from upstairs is the sound of _gunfire_.

As if they heard, boots pound and clatter down the stairs and voices cry out in alarm and pop-pop-pop-chhhrrrrr-thud again and again and again. Her mind is screaming at her body to get up, to be on guard, to hide or run or do _something_ other than lie motionless on the floor like a lamb ready for the slaughter.

The body is defiant despite her best attempts, and even the lifting of shorn and bruised head is enough to make the world tilt and spin and threaten to fade. Cracked lips move in prayer – just in case this is finally the end, and she is ready for it – and the door explodes open with a thunderous and terrifying crash.

She cowers like a frightened child and hates herself for it, and voices cut piecemeal through the growing fog – _"Get her – stabi – lise – ready – extrac – chop…"_

There is strength in her after all, because when it all comes down to it she realises that if she's going to die, she wants to die fighting for the life she thought she didn't want anymore, and so she hits out with all of her strength and the world tilts and spins and she thinks for a moment that she's been hit, because something is _pouring_ down her face.

Someone is crying and Ziva wishes it would stop because it hurts her head, and the blood tastes salty in her mouth; and it is only then that she realises she is sobbing and she is as powerless to stop it as she is to stop her fists from inflicting whatever damage they can in her last seconds. She is terrified and takes it all back, she takes it all back because she _does not want to die_, no no no, not here, not like this, lying in this filthy stinking hole like an animal and _oh Tali, was it like this for you when the world exploded around you, did you feel yourself shattering or did you just disappear? _

"Stop – fight – ing, Ziv – " A hand brushes her cheek, and despite herself and the all-consuming fear, she leans into the gentle touch. "Shhhh…"

Words murmured in her ear wash over her like breaking waves, and she is beyond understanding what they mean, beyond anything but the black naked horror of staring death in the face, but she hears the undercurrent of calm through the static and it stills her more effectively than any restraint.

She who has for so long been denied comfort.

"Ziver… Shhh… it's okay, stop fighting… Shhh… "

A voice intrudes from a distance, and the gunfire continues, but fainter as though moving.

" – ibbs– need – move – chop – wait – ing – "

She screams brokenly as she is lifted from the floor and cradled like a babe in arms, and then they are moving, up the stairs and through rooms that are thick with the scent of gunpowder and blood and through it all, she concentrates on the calm and the solid warm strength of him and the_ shhh,_ like happy summer waves on the warm Haifa sand.

And then the evening air hits her face like a slap and under the smell of fuel and men and burning powder is a hint of green, and she starts sobbing all over again and doesn't even know why but oh the beauty of it…

There is _whup-whup-whup_ and something soft under her back, the smell of antiseptic and worried voices and busy busy busy. A sting, and a rush of heat into a dehydrated vein. The beginning of blissful relief from the constant pain and -

"Shhh… shhh…"

Ziva's world fades to black and for the first time in days she sleeps.

* * *

_*author cannot write proper AN as she is hiding under the table, waiting for the response… eeek! _*


	10. Red and Gold

_**Author's Note:** First of all, apologies in advance for a long wait for updates after this one. I'm heading off to Thailand tomorrow, and though I did actually consider taking my computer, after a nightmare uni semester I'm sorely in need of a break. And some sunshine – it's winter here and thoroughly cold wet and miserable._

_I **am** taking a notepad and paper and my fic outline, considering that since I've started this there hasn't been a day when I haven't felt the need to write something (even if it's just a paragraph, or a conversation). There's no point IM'ing me to beg for updates or throw electronic stones, because I doubt I'll be checking my email very often. Patience is much appreciated._

_See y'all in two weeks! xx_

* * *

The chopper lands and all they can see for miles is pale dry earth, sandy and unforgiving in the harsh light of early morning. "Welcome to El Gorah", the pilot says dryly as the medical team fixes straps and gathers bags of much-needed fluids and "_one, two, three_" lifts the gurney and rushes its precious cargo in through a waiting door. Tony and Gibbs trail behind, blinking as sand whirls around them and stings their faces like a slap.

Like a kiss goodbye.

The sign on the front of the unassuming building says 'North Base Camp Infirmary', but Tony isn't fooled in the slightest. He hates hospitals – the bustle and the cold antiseptic and buzzing humming lights and the sterility of it all. He breathes and thinks he can feel his lungs constrict; he looks at his hands and imagines blue nails purpling under blue light.

He thinks of Jeanne and the sharp report of gunfire echoing off green tiles, a sister so desperate for release from the burning inside her that she thought nothing of breathing in the remains of her brother. Green and white and red.

Tony hates hospitals, but he would walk on water for Ziva, and so he follows his Boss through the double doors .

* * *

Three hours. Three damn hours of wait, wait; "we'll let you know as soon as we know," sucking back coffee that smells like dirt and tastes like motor oil, and beep beep whoosh from down the hall. Gibbs disappears for awhile and Tony imagines him raising hell at the nurses station, demanding information. When he returns with cup in hand, he says nothing, just sits rigid like marble on the edge of his chair, still dressed in borrowed fatigues.

"She's still in surgery, DiNozzo."

Time passes sluggishly like treacle flowing from a spoon, and Tony alternates between stalking back and forth in the stifling room and sitting in chairs that seem purposely designed to keep people from finding any sort of comfort. He thinks of Ziva, crumpled like a crushed flower and sobbing in Gibbs's arms. His eyes burn.

* * *

"Mr Gibbs? Doctor Angelou. Very sorry to have kept you waiting."

Heads snap up in tandem and hope flares bright like morning sunshine. The doctor reminds Tony of McGee, all round eager face and hair that's just a fraction too long, and he wonders if Gibbs has called Washington with the news yet.

"Miss David," he pronounces it in the way she hates, and Tony wants to correct him, but Gibbs shoots him a warning look as the doctor continues, "made it through the surgery with no complications, though she has several serious injuries that will need to be closely monitored over the next few hours. Our trauma surgeons have successfully repaired and set the shattered bones in her right hand and resolved the bleeding in her abdomen."

The list is endless and the words sting as they are cast into the air, a cloud of misery and horror. Lacerations and stitches. Fractured ribs and bruises and burns. Dehydration and hypovolemic shock and transfusions and IV fluids morphine antibiotics…

"The greatest worry is the possibility of head trauma – there are a number of wounds that suggest severe and repeated blows to the head. Her CT scans suggest minor bleeding on the brain, which may resolve itself but may also require further surgery." Here Dr Angelou pauses and looks meaningfully at Gibbs.

"If this happens, she will need to be transferred to another facility – we simply do not have the equipment or neurosurgeons necessary to perform such a procedure."

"What's the bottom line, Doc?" Gibbs says, shrugging off the words as if he simply does not consider that an option. Once upon a time he stood under blue light and ordered Tony not to die, and Tony obeyed despite the odds.

"Miss David - " Angelou stutters mid-sentence and glances at Tony, who realises with a start that he'd corrected the man without knowing, "uh, Miss _Dah-veed _is sedated, but if you wish to see her for a few minutes…" They're out the door before he finishes and used to the brusqueness of military personnel, he simply shrugs and hurries after them.

* * *

"Any word from Gibbs?" Abby asks as she hurries through the glass doors into Autopsy, stopping short when she sees the open body on the table. "You're working?" she asks in surprise.

"Surely you did not think that I only work for Jethro and his team, my dear girl," Ducky says calmly without turning around. Jimmy's eyes crinkle in a smile behind his plastic mask as he removes a section of the ribcage and sets it into a metal dish.

"This poor soul looks to have suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke after receiving a nasty blow to the back of the head. Had he sought medical attention, he might have been lying in Bethesda, not on my table. However, he has unexplained petechial haemorrhaging in his eyes, so Mister Palmer is just checking his organs to ensure we have not missed anything."

Ducky strips off his gloves and motions to Jimmy. "Mister Palmer, you may finish up here. I expect a full report on my desk by the end of the day."

"Did Tony call? Gibbs? Because he promised he'd call when they had news, and I checked the time difference and it's almost 1400 there, and they should know something by now and oh god," and her face whitens under the makeup as something occurs to her, "what if something happened to them, to Gibbs and Tony, or – "

"Or Gibbs forgot to bring the charger for his cell _again_? Hey Abs; Ducky."

A voice intrudes from the vicinity of Ducky's desk. Abby almost jumps out of her skin when she sees Tony's face appear on the video screen. He looks exhausted and worried and she wants to give him a hug more than ever before.

"Tony! How's Africa? " she asks, careful not to mention _her_ name just in case someone's listening. He shrugs and looks behind him as monitor alarms blare. "Did you visit the place we read about in the guidebook? How's your aunt coping with the heat?"

"Africa was pretty much exactly what we expected, Abs – all dust and mayhem and no pepperoni. We've moved on, because Aunt Barbara didn't feel safe. It was a hard flight, and she's still sleeping off her headache, but Uncle Gibbs hopes she'll be awake pretty soon."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Abby's grinning a bit because all this code-talk makes him feel like she's in the middle of one of Tony's movies; and the way this week's been, if she doesn't find something to laugh at soon she's in danger of the Bourne Identity turning into One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. She's sworn off straitjackets after the last disastrous experiment.

Ducky leans forward and looks at Tony closely as Abby fidgets with her studded cuffs and struggles not to burst with all the things she can't say. "Give her our regards when she wakes." The words are pale and inadequate, hanging in the abyss of their emotions, but it will have to do for now.

"Stay safe, Tony; and tell Gibbs… tell him the Caf-Pow machine's broken and I need him to come back soon so he can glare it into operation. And…" her voice cracks and wavers, "bring her home safely? We miss you guys."

Oh the shared love in the room, pulsing in time with the beat of hurting longing hearts.

Onscreen, Tony wilts and flashes them a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes, and Abby's stomach knots and twists for her and him and all of them. "We miss you too, Abs. I'll write when I can, okay?"

He doesn't bother to make promises he's not sure he can keep, where once he would have told her what she wanted to hear – _yes, Abby, we're all coming home soon, everything is okay, all is forgiven_. Nothing is okay, and there is much to forgive on both sides, but Ziva is safe for now and that's all that matters, really.

The screen goes dark and she turns to Ducky, who regards her silently for a moment and opens his arms. "Permission to hug, Abigail?" And now that Tony can't see her she doesn't have to pretend she's strong, so she folds herself into Ducky's waiting arms and bites her bottom lip to stop the sudden urge to sob.

* * *

Tony hesitates in the doorway, watching her eyelids flutter as she lies unconscious and unaware under a heavy blanket of medication. From outside the window the sun creeps over her, tentative fingers of red and gold that kiss and soothe her too-thin limbs.

Stripped of grease and sweat and crusted blood and dressed in white, she looks small and insignificant among the tubes and wires and beeping whirring machines. They drip life and comfort into her veins and monitor the movement of her weary little heart.

He could laugh at the sound of it, _beat beat beat_, steady and sure and the only thing left that hints at the fearless person she once was.

When they first lifted her into the chopper, she had stared with wild, mad eyes that skittered and danced like a caged animal as they fought to calm her. Stared and sobbed and clutched at Gibbs' shirt with twisting desperate fingers as he whispered in her ear, and Tony sat just out of reach and burning with the knowledge that he wanted it to be him. He wanted. He wants.

Tony is fearful and faltering, and has never felt more useless in his life.

The low voice that growls in his ear shocks him out of his pity party like ice water down his spine. "So help me God, DiNozzo, if you came all the way to Egypt to prop up doorways, I'll ship your ass back to DC faster than you can blink."

"Boss, I - "

"I know, Tony." His given name sounds foreign in Gibbs's voice and he can count on one hand the number of times he's heard it. They stand and watch her sleep for a moment.

"What if - "

"Speculation going to help you, or her?"

"Well, no, but - "

Ziva mutters and shifts in her sleep, and Tony realises that they've moved just inside the door without him even noticing. That Gibbs, he wrote the book on sneaky. Now that he's inside, it doesn't seem that much of a stretch to keep moving, and he wonders _why_ it was so hard a moment ago. He feels Gibbs's eyes on his back as he sits down carefully next to the bed and ever so gently takes her less damaged hand in his.

"Angelou's slowly weaning her off the sedatives, said she might cope better seeing a familiar face when she wakes up. You up for that?"

"Yeah, Boss. I've got her six." Tony realises Gibbs didn't wait for his reply before vanishing, and the faith makes him smile as he turns her hand over and studies it. Back in college a girl (Sandy or Mandy or Candy, he can't remember) once offered to read his palm during a lecture. He let her babble on about heart and head and life lines because she was easy on the eyes and he was bored, and it ended with sex like so many things did back then.

He doesn't remember her words or her face, but he gently traces the lines on Ziva's hand anyway as if it will tell him what's going on in her head, and around him the monitors beep and drip and hum.

He sits with her in silence and thinks of all the things he wants to tell her when she wakes.

* * *

She floats somewhere under the haze, dreamy and feather-light. Dimly remembers the fear and the pain and whup whup whup shhhh but it's as though she's watching it happen to someone else. She was not there on that filthy floor; she was in Haifa, playing 'ninja tag' on the beach. Gentle waves on soft sand and laughter like bells and tiny pink toes, and oh she could stay here forever, here where she is bathed in love and light.

And yet… she is not finished with the world yet, as cruel and cold as it can be. There is beauty there in a shy smile and black lips and green eyes; there is love there in murmured voices and stolen glances and enthusiastic hugs. There are things that need to be put right.

The ache slides in sneakily through the cotton-soft haze and with it the other senses fade back into being. Crisp cotton and antiseptic and beep hiss whirr crash chirp. Callused fingers tracing lines on tender palm, soothing and constant and loving.

Someone within reach that she knows but can't quite place from down here under the blanket. Struggle up slowly as heart fills and quickens (beepbeepbeep) and fingers twitch and grasp, feather-soft and tentative.

An intake of breath from somewhere above and a warm treacly rumble of voice.

"Zee-vah?"

The pain sweeps in, fierce and white-hot and unyielding, but she knows that nothing worth anything comes without a price, so she pushes down the swirling panicked feeling and forces herself to peek at the world from underneath black lashes.

"Hey there," He smiles in nervous relief as she struggles to focus, caught somewhere between sleep and awareness.

"Welcome back, sweet cheeks." Spun sugar and summer sunshine in his voice, as his fingers move gently and slowly (hesitation in those fingers, as though she's breakable) to cup her face. She leans into the warmth briefly in between the crashing waves that make her shiver.

Understanding dawns on his face, and suddenly there's a flurry of activity on her other side and a burn in her veins. The sudden absence of his hand leaves her cheek cold and wanting, and she reaches for him and makes a noise that is not quite a word, but says enough. They've never needed words anyway.

Fingers grip soft cotton and pull with surprising strength and he yields to her unspoken demand, shifting her with gentle and tentative hands as she fights not to gasp. The mattress dips as he settles and she lies back into the warm strength of him and sinks back into the haze.

He presses his lips to her head and closes his eyes in the fading light.

They sleep as the man with silver hair watches them with bright eyes.

* * *

_**A/N**__: Much love to those who review faithfully. You're __**my**__ summer sunshine and spun sugar._


	11. Chocolate

_**A/N:** This update coming to you direct from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, while waiting at the airport for a supremely delayed connecting flight. Apologies for any errors - much of this was typed in my iPod Touch which is less than good for... well, typing chapters. Back on Thursday, and have more updates to follow! :)_

* * *

The task falls to Gibbs as it usually does. Great leader, fierce protector, Papa Bear. He would take a bullet for any one of them. One day he might even tell them that.

_What do you do_, Gibbs thinks to himself in those first days as he watches Ziva slowly begin to unfold and come back to life, _when one of the people you have sworn to shield from hurt and harm -_ watching their six, as DiNozzo calls it _- becomes someone you will have to put through hell , so that others less protective might spare her?_

Ziva once told him that she would gladly bear the brunt of Paula Cassidy's anger - hate, even - in order to help her get through the dark days to come. Gibbs hopes that her eidetic memory will spark a reminder of that long-passed conversation when this is over.

He tries not to think of how that story ended, with prayers and a bomb and another photo added to the wall of the fallen.

It's been four days since he watched her bruised and hesitant hands pull his Senior Field Agent down onto her hospital bed, and Ziva is yet to talk. Not just about the hell she's been put through; though reading through the list of her injuries gives him a pretty good indication of what happened when, and how - but about anything. She bites her lip occasionally when prompted for a response, as though the minute she starts to speak she won't be able to stop herself from screaming.

The first day, the doctors chalked it up to the bruising on her neck and the cocktail of sedatives. The second day, they examined her vocal cords. When they ruled that out, they started throwing around words like 'post traumatic reaction' and 'shock'. Tony tries to draw her out with soft words and witty comments, even going so far as to provoke her in a gentler shadow of the back-and- forth banter that they used to do so well. There is only the 'forth', and_ oh_ how they wish they could go back.

"Give her time," Angelou said quietly to Gibbs and Tony, while all three men stood in the doorway and watched her sleep off the drugs in her system. "It's a miracle she's alive at all, given the extent of her injuries. Any normal person would probably never made it into that chopper."

Gibbs knows how much she hates the suggestion that she is anything less than normal, and so he leaves that second part out. The first slips unbidden from his lips one afternoon, and he means it as a comfort, but as soon as he hears it ringing in the bright light of the hospital he wishes he hadn't. She recoils as if he's slapped her, and she doesn't have to say anything for him to understand the look in her eyes.

Gibbs knows all too well the feeling of facing certain death; accepting it and even inviting it to claim you, only to find yourself thrust back into life, kicking and screaming and hating every damned minute. Survivor's guilt, the conflict of wishing you were dead and knowing what your death would do to those left behind, and still wanting the first just that little bit more. He gets it, perhaps better than anyone.

As soon as he leaves the room, he slaps himself upside the head. The sound echoes in the corridor. A passing nurse does a double-take, but they've learnt to leave the two men alone when it comes to things like complaints of the endless coffee refills draining the mess hall pot, or Tony's unorthodox refusal to sleep anywhere but in Ziva's room. Odd behaviour from them is almost expected, and as long as they're not bothered Gibbs doesn't give a damn.

Later, he listens as Tony tells a silent and grim-faced Ziva that McGee sends his love, that Abby calls daily for updates and was shocked that a US Army base in the middle of the Egyptian desert didn't have black roses, or even a lousy bunch of carnations. She bears the news with her usual grace and even feigns a smile to make Tony happy. Tony tells her with a puzzled grin that Ducky asked him to remind her of the stories about the phoenix and the beggar children in Baghdad. The connection dropped out before he could tell Ducky he had never heard those stories, so neither Tony nor Gibbs are sure of their meaning, but it brings a genuine smile to her face so obviously she understands.

The healing scar on her jawline bothers them both more than they'd like, more so than any of the others. Jagged and furious, it curves up onto her cheek like a half-formed question. Angelou says plastic surgeons can do wonders with scars these days, but until they work out what the next move is, it's not an option. She has not asked to see herself in a mirror, and they are not about to offer.

Tony once joked that Mossad was like the Marines - you only become an 'ex' when you die. The difference is, the Corps are unlikely to send anyone to do the job in the first place. Nobody has dared to broach the subject of her future.

And now Gibbs has no choice, because they are running out of time and there are certain details, missing and ill-fitting pieces, that make his gut churn (or it might be all the antifreeze-tasting coffee). The presence of Israeli soldiers and Marines at her rescue fills him with a sense of trepidation. He's not sure whether they were Mossad or IDF, but from what he understands, the two communicate with each other and it's only a matter of time before....

"Sir?" a voice says sharply from behind him. "No cell phones allowed in the base infirmary. Turn it off, or take it outside." He hadn't realized it was ringing. A nurse he hasn't seen before stands behind him, hands planted on her stocky hips.

"You new on base, Nurse... Ratched?"

She huffs at him indignantly. "Just reported yesterday. And the name is Nurse Rachel. Rah-kel." Gibbs stares pointedly at her until she drops her gaze. It takes an impressive 67 seconds, a new record.

"You'll learn," Gibbs says with a grin as he walks through the doors and out into the stifling heat. The damn phone falls silent for a moment and then begins ringing again, vibrating in the pocket of his khakis. Gibbs frowns at the display.

"You need something, Leon?"

"A fishing tip," comes the dry reply from the other end. In the background, Gibbs hears a disembodied voice calling over a PA, and his frown deepens.

"I'm not much of a fisherman myself, Director; don't think I can help." What is that roar in the background? Bells and beeps and a whirring machine.

"Heard you have a buddy who's good at finding rare fish. You speak to him recently? I'm looking for somewhere warm to cast a few nets."

"I got a feeling he had some help with the last catch. I'll email you his number."

"Thought you didn't use-"

He lowers the phone without bothering to say goodbye, and dials Abby immediately. She picks up on the second ring, shouting above the deafening music.

"Gibbs! I just called Tony, and he said everything was fine... If I find out he was breaking Abby's rule number 1, I'll... do something really bad to... his Mighty Mouse stapler! Everything is fine, right?"

"Well, that depends on what you got for me, Abs. Other than a headache."

The stereo noise disappears, and he imagines her frowning at the phone, trying to read his mind again.

"Well then everything is not fine, because I got nothing. You didn't even ask me to do anything!!"

"I know," he says dryly. "I'm asking now."

"Oh! Well, ask away, Oh Mighty Bossman. No job too big or too small. Except fixing the Caf-Pow machine, apparently, because-"

"Abby! Need the location of Director Vance's cell phone. Call me back when you got it, and my next call will be to Maintenance." He hangs up and surveys the base thoughtfully. The grounds are mostly deserted, thanks to a three-day training exercise off-base. They were lucky most of the medical staff were exempt from the exercise, having patients to take care of.

He wonders idly if Holl was ever stationed here. He hopes she found what she was looking for in Hawaii.

"Boss?"

Tony stands at the entrance to the medical center, blinking in the deserted sunlight. "Ziva's doing... girl stuff... with the nurses. I mean, not girl stuff, just, uh, getting cleaned up and... You know." He shrugs, looking sheepish.

"And you thought you'd come to tell me this because..."

"Uh.. Wanted to talk to you. About-" He stares out at the base for awhile. "She won't talk to me," he finally says, quietly and without his usual bluster. "If she's still pissed about... what happened... I get it. Maybe I deserve it, maybe I don't. There's a whole lot of stuff we still need to work out. But she won't talk, so..."

He's looking anywhere but at Gibbs when he says it, and Gibbs fights the urge to roll his eyes. Anyone with half an eye could see the chemistry between them, obvious since the first day Ziva swaggered her way into the squadroom.

Now she walks haltingly and only a few steps at a time, always supported by someone else. Stripped of her fierce independence by the unyielding amd brutal hands of men, again and again.

It makes his stone heart ache.

Back before everything started to unravel, Gibbs had half a mind to lock them in the elevator and tell them not to come out until they'd gotten it out of their systems. Now, looking at Tony's conflicted face, he wonders if it's not more than just pure physical attraction.

"DiNozzo, you think if I'd figured out how to talk to women I'd have been through three divorces?"

"Well, you certainly know how to make them mad," Tony says before he can stop himself, then blinks. "Uh... I'd try that, but it would be about as smart as pulling Cujo's tail, injuries or no." He sighs, and without his jovial mask he looks weary and old.

"You been sleeping, Tony?"

"Some. The, uh, nurses; they check her a lot in the night. They have those little flashlights, and I swear they aim right for my face."

"Angelou told me the checks stopped a couple days ago." He pins Tony with the stare that makes suspects trip over themselves to tell him the truth, and decides to make it easy for once.

"Ziva not sleeping well, DiNozzo? Cos if she's not, they can give her something to help with that, at least temporarily."

Tony stubbornly continues to look away, but he's squirming. When the ringing of Gibbs's phone cuts through the silence, his face is so visibly relieved, like a hanging man cut loose before the drop, that Gibbs almost laughs.

"We're not done with this topic, Tony," he warns as he flips open the phone and Tony escapes back inside. "Abby. Am I calling Clive or not?"

"I'm hurt that you doubted me, Gibbs. How's the weather in El Gorah, Egypt anyway? Vance isn't the only one I can trace. Africa, my left cuff!!"

"Abby.."

"Okay, okay! I traced Vance's cell. He's bouncing the signal from towers all over the world, and i had to... do lots of stuff that you're not interested in. I pinpointed his location... but you're not gonna like it."

"Clive's number is about to be deleted from my phone, Abby..."

"Gibbs, Vance landed at Ben Gurion half an hour ago. He's in Israel." Gibbs can't find the words as his mind races.

"That's not all. I had a gunch. Part gut, part hunch, if you were interested. So, I traced the cell number we had on file for Hadar, Director David's evil number two, and guess what?"

He suddenly doesn't want to know. "Same result. They're together. Which probably means that..."

"The happy little destroy Ziva family are having a reunion. Gibbs, what if-"

"You stay on them, Abs. Keep me in the loop. And if Vance calls..."

"Gibbs who?"

"Good job, Abby. Calling Clive right now."

He cuts her off and dials the maintenance office, and in his current mood it's not a great stretch to sound like he could rip out the repairmans throat from the other side of the world. Clive promises to have the machine fixed within the hour and to deliver Abby's reward direct to her lab, though not with the kiss that usually accompanies it.

With one promise kept, he hurries inside to see what he can do about keeping the other.

* * *

"Ziva." The voice is familiar and beloved, but the sharp tone makes her think of airless rooms and mirrored windows, the feeling of being watched, assessed and bet upon. She keeps her eyes closed, remembering.

_Ten bucks says he'll go for the chair throw. Twenty for the ripped photograph. Fifty says under three minutes before the tears start to fall._

But all that is part of the before.

In the after, she thinks of "_Tell me everything you know about NCIS,"_ and flinches automatically from the blows she expects to follow.

An indrawn breath from above, and Gibbs speaks again, voice softer around the edges, " Ziva. You're safe here." Safety, or a clever trick? The other could be soft too, gentle even, but his boots and hands still ravaged and violated in the end. Still, she remembers what Gibbs did for her, and despite herself she trusts. Her eyes open - two again, now that the swelling has mostly subsided - and focus.

Gibbs looks at her with a steady steely gaze and for a moment she forgets how to breathe. He looks at her like he looks at Vance, and the mistrust could not be plainer if he'd slapped her in the face with it.

"Think it's time we had a little chat."

As always these days, her throat closes over with the weight of everything she needs to say and needs to keep hidden, and the fear that follows wraps icy fingers around her chest and squeezes. She gasps, and hot tears pool and threaten to spill over. Tony-in-her-head says "_Pay up, suckers."_

He waits as she blinks and scrubs at her face like a child. He is unyielding, and she is inexplicably terrified. This is something new amongst the concern and caring. New, yet not entirely unexpected. Ziva David is not a fool, she knew even before she made that extraction call that she was destroying trusts all over the globe...

"Dammit, Ziva!"

His voice slices, and she never thought it would hurt so much; more acutely than fists on flesh. She doesn't want to look at him, but like a moth drawn to a flame, chocolate eyes flicker and collide with blue.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't call Mossad and inform them of the whereabouts of their loyal operative."

Suddenly, the fear subsides, and in its place anger burns like fire through her veins. Bitterness and white hot fury for all the men in her life who have looked at her like a weapon, wielded and worked and discarded.

It loosens her throat and the words rush out, whipping through the air.

"I would rather you had left me in Africa to die like a dog in that filthy hole." The vehemance of it startles them both, but Ziva is not done. She strikes out like a wounded animal, wanting to inflict pain rather than face the possibility of suffering more. "But you will do as you desire, as always. Perhaps you should send Tony to finish the job, since he has proven himself more tham capable of such things."

"Tony has proven himself trustworthy in many areas, Ziva, including protecting those that he is loyal to. You of all people should understand what that takes."

There is no mistaking his anger now, and she cracks and crumbles inside as the words spill from her lips. Fights to keep from sobbing at having said aloud what she knows is not true or fair to the green eyed man who does his best to make her smile, strokes the remains of her hair as she feigns sleep. Who whispers soft soothing words in her ear as she shudders awake night after night, bathed in cold sweat and limp with the horror of her dreams.

"You knew Rivkin was in the States, in DC, and you knew the details of his mission. You handled him like you handled Ari-" Gibbs does not even flinch and she hates him for it "- hell, you probably profiled the LA cell for him, gave him all the intel he needed to murder an American federal agent." He leans in close and delivers the killing blow. "Just like the last time. Daddy assign you to kill Rivkin, too, or just keep him drunk?"

"I was not read in on the specifics of Michael's mission," she says, each word an effort. Everything aches. "You read my report. I withheld nothing that was related to your operation in Los Angeles."

"And after? When you called Hadar to extract a man who carried out an unsanctioned hit on an American citizen, then killed two others on his 'vacation'?"

He pauses and looks away as if listening to the noise outside in the corridor. Listening for Tony, she realizes bleakly, so that he cannot jump in to defend me. Surrounded by people who have sworn to do no harm, she feels more alone than she ever did in that filthy little room.

"There is a long list of people, Ziva, who have reason not to trust you."

She does not trust herself at this moment. Ziva who was once filled with fire and conviction, and unwavering confidence in her ability to overcome.

And yet...

"You came all the way from Washington, Gibbs, to tell me that I am not welcome back at NCIS?" A flicker of something in his eyes.

"We came, Ziva, because we do not know who to trust.." Ah, there it is. Her supposed reason for leaving, thrown back in her face.

"They sent you to... interrogate me. To find out where my loyalties lie and whether I will betray NCIS." It is not really a question, and Gibbs does not answer. " You..." She cannot finish the sentence. Her chest heaves with the hurt of it all, and her eyes are wide and wounded and wild. When she speaks again her voice is a strangled whisper.

"Tell me everything you know about NCIS." Gibbs just stares. " So many times they - he - asked me. He demanded an answer with his voice, and his fists and boots and belt and his..." she cannot say it but knows it is written on her face, and the eyes that miss nothing notice and blanch.

"My fate was sealed from the moment Michael's heart stopped beating, perhaps even before, and I understand now why he used his last breath to apologize. Mossad would never have extracted him. He was just a means for an end."

Gibbs does not look surprised, nor does be correct her English as Tony might have.

She repeats words she once said to Tony in another life. "You are given orders, and you have no choice but to follow them. That is why they are called orders." Her mouth is as dry as the desert outside the window, and she shivers despite the warmth of the room. The walls close in as she continues, resigned.

"I suppose Michael was ordered to watch me, much as I was ordered to join a team of Mossad operatives to locate and eliminate a camp in Africa."

She sees in her head the photo she tacked to the wall of three smiling children, and her vision blurs. This, Tali; is this what you felt as you ceased to exist, the rent and tear of your world exploding?

"I do not know who ordered them to stand down as I was drugged and tied and taken from the boat. I do not know who... _ordered_... my captors to ask that question, or why. The fact that they did not ask a single question about Mossad tells me something about where their orders might have come from."

"Ziva," Gibbs says impossibly gently, but she is beyond listening.

"I did not see it until it was too late," she says bitterly. Taught almost from birth to anticipate, to assess intent and to react, and for _what_?

"You may not..." oh, it burns like a thousand hot pokers pressed into tender flesh, "...trust me, and perhaps that is justified, but..." She can't find the words among the scatter and tumble and ache. Pause and breathe ragged breaths.

"Perhaps I should have told them everything, and then closed my eyes as the bullet pierced my skull. _Some days I wish I had_."

They recoil from the words in tandem, he from hearing them and she from daring to voice the thought.

"I did not, and would not, knowingly betray NCIS. Whether I told you or not, I would still have been recalled to Mossad and Michael would still be dead. Perhaps my father would shed tears over the death of his last child, or perhaps he would simply sign off on the case file and move to the next threat. I do not know."

She cannot stop the words, like a runaway freight train, barrelling through dark tunnels and crashing through the barrier at the end of the line. Crash and burn.

Ziva turns away from him with a shift of starched cotton and despite her broken ribs and screaming wounds, curls her knees almost to her chest.

Exhausted beyond tears, beyond anger, she closes her eyes and imagines the feeling of sand beneath her toes. Dry desert air and hot buttery sunshine warming her from the outside in. Anywhere but here.

The chair squeaks as Gibbs rises and moves around the bed, his hand cupping her face like she imagines a father would upon finding his daughter in such a state. Other people's fathers.

His voice is pained. "We came to Africa," he says, lifting her chin, "because we do not abandon our own." His sigh is deep and heavy with regret.

"I'm sorry," he says and her head starts to spin. Gibbs does not apologize. It is a fact as immutable as the rise of the sun. "I'm sorry that I had to cause you more pain, when you have endured so much. If I didn't ask the questions, someone else would have."

Tears leak from her traitorous eyes and trickle into the grooves of his hand.

Ducky's voice echoes in her head. They had just closed the case of a communications operator who had died aboard a naval vessel, trying to save his shipmates from the fire he was accused of lighting. The blaze had been the result of faulty wiring, and nine men were alive because one man would not leave them behind, carrying them through the flames even as he himself burned.

_"A most marvellous creature, the phoenix. It sacrifices itself to the flames despite the agony of burning alive, so that it may be born anew, given a second chance at life. Some say that the phoenix is at its most beautiful when it burns, but I beg to differ. It is the moment when the smoke clears and all that is left is an ugly little bird and the scent of reborn hope. The beauty lies in the possibility, you see."_

"We will find a way to fix this, Ziver, to bring you home safely."

The haze dissipates, and for the first time in weeks she allows herself to breathe in the sweet scent of hope.

* * *

_Reviews much appreciated... give me something to look forward to on my 10 hour stopover... pretty please??_


	12. Pale Green

_**A/N:** Sorry for the huge wait between updates - RL has been all kinds of crazy. Among other disasters, I'm back at uni (and mourning the holidays), which means I spend a good portion of my time reading and writing academic bulls*** and far less time than I'd like reading and writing fic. Oh well... such is life._

_**Disclaimer:** If NCIS were mine, I would buy a computer that had an 'enter' key AND properly working letter keys. (It's very annoying when a different letter each day decides to go on the fritz and I have to pound the holy hell out of it to make it work). _

_Hope you enjoy (if anyone's still reading), and I promise the wait won't be so long next time. :)_

* * *

Tony leans on the pale green wall outside Ziva's room, the cool concrete seeping through his shirt and cooling the rushing blood in his veins. Inside, Gibbs's voice rumbles too softly for him to make out the words, but he can hear Ziva's breathing stutter and hitch brokenly amidst the purr and rumble, and it's enough to make him clench his fists.

_Stop it,_ he wants to yell through the thin wooden door. _Can't you see you're hurting her?_ Leave her alone, let her rest and grow strong again, get back to what she once was.

Wishful thinking from the king of make-believe.

None of them will ever be as they were, but sometimes it's nice to pretend, distracting almost. Tony needs some distraction right now, because there's a good chance that if Gibbs doesn't leave her room in the next three minutes Tony is going in there to haul him out by the collar, boss or no boss. Ziva is….

_Whoa there._

Ziva is _not_ his. Not yet – maybe not ever, if they can't get past this.

Tony could not do what Gibbs is doing, even if it would help her in the long run. It makes him sick just thinking about it.

And maybe that's why Rule 12 exists in the first place. Whatever she did or might have done, he trusts her as a partner and as a friend (and he's actually not sure, to tell the truth, where one thing ends and another begins), and by all rights he shouldn't.

She withheld information important in an investigation; harboured a fugitive, and chose to call Mossad to extract Michael rather than turn him over to NCIS… and he was bothered enough by her behaviour – how could he _not_ be, after Lee – to start questioning her loyalty.

He's just not sure whether he was questioning her loyalty to NCIS or to _him_. The fact remains – the thing that bothered him the _most_ about Rivkin was not his role in the ICE agent's murder, but the possibility that Ziva might get hurt. Blurring the boundaries between professional and personal before they've even started _actually_ crossing them.

Vance, as much as he hates to admit it, was right. He _did_ go to her apartment to protect her, and he would do it again (but just _look_ at where his protection got them the first time).

Dr Angelou approaches from the entrance, and judging by his red face and jogging shorts, he's been called in on his day off. There's urgency in his face and in his gait and Tony's stomach clenches. The good doctor slows a little and glances at him quizzically, his eyes darting to the closed door, but at Tony's shrug, he picks up the pace and trots past down the hall.

It's easy to forget that there are other patients here, that life continues to blow past like the wind outside the window. Tony wonders what McGee is doing to fill his days – case-less, team-less… knowing McGeek, he's probably memorising some obscure addendum to the NCIS handbook or hacking into Gibbs's computer to read and delete the 549 unread emails that clueless people still send him.

_Dear Gibbs,_ he types in his mind. _Enough is enough. Time to come out for a refill. I need to know that she's still okay in there. _

What a joke. He should just bust the door open and stride in like he belongs there.

He rages silently outside her door as she shatters silently within, and the wall between them might as well be twenty feet tall, and she seems indifferent to him in the daylight, in spite of her constant unspoken plea for him to stay with her as night falls.

He can't burst in there because there's a chance Ziva might tell him to leave. It's not entirely rational, but he's low on sleep and not feeling particularly rational at the moment.

Since that first long night when she was drugged to the eyeballs and practically unconscious for a good thirteen hours, he's spent the nights drifting in and out either on a mattress or mostly, lying carefully next to her in a bed that's only meant for one. The absence of snoring troubles him. He wonders sometimes if she's sleeping properly at all, or just pretending to so that _he_ will sleep.

She must sleep in fits and spurts, because sometimes during the night she wakes up gasping and swearing in all the languages she knows, clenched in fear and dripping with sweat. There is no middle ground between the two states, no warning sign to tell him it's time to leap for relative safety of the hard mattress the nurses begrudgingly put on the floor.

He does his best to calm her and for his trouble bears marks on his arms and chest from her frantic attempts to escape her demons. Strokes her hair and murmurs nonsense words until she lies still and boneless, breathing evenly and unable to look him in the eye.

Most mornings he wakes up, not even remembering the point when he fell asleep, and she is curled into him like they've been doing it since forever, damp cropped curls pressing into his shoulder as she slowly breaches the barrier between sleep and awakening. When she does not dream, she wakes slowly and with effort, like she's pushing her way through treacle.

Those mornings, her breath warms his collarbone, warm and sweet; and she doesn't push him away when he wraps her in his arms (mindful of his shoulder, almost but _not quite_ back to normal) and presses his lips into the downy hair at her temple.

Until she is properly awake, she lets him; but once the sun rises she puts up the wall and they fall into their new routine.

In this state – vulnerable, hurting and exhausted, she is unpredictable as hell. He doesn't know quite how to handle her – someone has taken their old game and rewritten the rules and he can't open his mouth without wondering if he's stepping over the boundaries. She won't talk, and despite her best efforts to convince him she's doing okay, he can see right through her like a window.

She's still jagged and broken on the inside, and him being able to see it at all scares Tony more than he'll ever admit. Ziva of the unreadable eyes and set face.

If he didn't care about her so damn much he would have pushed her until she shattered, like he imagines Gibbs is doing right now on the other side of the door. Breaking to heal, like when they set his fractured bones in the ER as Ziva waited with Michael on the other side of another set of flimsy doors.

"DiNozzo!" he hears from somewhere above, and he smacks his head on the wall in his surprise. He never used to be this jumpy. Somehow he's worked his way down the wall and is sitting on the grey-tiled floor, without having even noticed.

He scrambles up and faces Gibbs, his anger flaring and fading quickly when he notices the expression on the older man's face.

Tony can count on one hand the times he's seen Gibbs look so disgusted with himself, and it stops him from saying what he's been thinking ever since he got back from the fools errand his boss sent him on and heard Gibbs shouting behind the closed door.

"Going for coffee," Gibbs says in a raw voice, and walks away down the hall without another word as Tony stands indecisively for a minute and then thinks '_to hell with it'_ and pushes through the door.

* * *

The Tel Aviv sun burns his scalp as he walks from the car park to the side entrance and pushes through the unassuming glass doors. Vance doesn't bother announcing himself, the blinking light of the security camera is announcement enough and Eli is expecting him.

Sure enough, a menacing figure waits just inside the door, dark eyes assessing Vance and immediately going to his hip. "You will surrender your weapon," he says, accent thick and steely voice not brooking any argument.

Vance nods and hands it over, a little surprised that a stranger stands before him and not Officer Hadar. He follows the khaki-clad form through the labyrinth of hallways and past the Director's plump, ever-smiling secretary.

"Director Vance!" she says enthusiastically, and he has to appreciate her savvy – the raised volume of her voice (loud enough to carry through to the inner office) is almost completely masked by her cheery tone.

"Hedya," he replies, leaning to kiss her cheek. "How are the children?"

"My boy, he is not himself lately," she says without missing a beat, for she is pushing sixty and still childless. "He spends much time searching for something he has lost. From what I understand, he thought he was putting it someplace safe. He was mistaken, and it troubles him, greatly, Leon."

"An unfortunate consequence of being human, Hedya," the Director's gravelly voice says from the doorway, nodding a curt dismissal at his unnamed subordinate, who turns to leave. "Chaim, before you go – I believe you have something that belongs to the Director. Return it."

Vance tucks the Sig back into his holster and nods his thanks to the surly man who vanishes silently down the corridor, his silent feet entirely at odds with his powerful stride.

"Hedya, kindly bring us some refreshments, and then you may take your lunch break. We have much to discuss and I doubt I will be needing you for the next hour at least."

The woman smiles at Vance and disappears in the opposite direction to Chaim, and the two men are left alone. Eli looks weary and aged, and Leon thinks of his daughter's tears when he left and his promise that he would be back soon, with the expectation that she would give him his very own piano recital even if he has to hire out the original venue to do it.

_Practice hard_, he had said to her as he kissed her damp cheek, _Nothing in this world comes without dedication and considerable effort_. She is young and hopeful, so he left out the bit about heartache and sacrifice.

It is his wish as a father that she does not have to learn that lesson the hard way.

"Come in, my friend," Eli says now, leading the way through the doors and closing them firmly. From his desk, he pulls out a familiar device and moves about the room swiftly, pointing once underneath a small table and again to a low-placed power point.

He makes no attempt to remove the devices, though he does move to close the curtains – presumably in case infra-red surveillance equipment is also being used.

They make small talk, discussing Vance's children, and he mentions that the family are considering going on a trip during the next school vacation, renting a boat and finding somewhere warm to relax on a deck and soak up the sun. He plans on teaching his children to fish – young Jared is keen to catch himself a shark.

Hedya enters and sets down a tray of coffee and assorted pastries, then leaves with a smile, her bag and hat in hand.

Vance pours the coffee as his old friend talks about a wonderful Turkish restaurant in downtown Tel Aviv where, according to Eli, the _patlican dolma _has to be tried to be believed. Regretfully, their schedule may not allow time for a visit – perhaps another time.

They talk briefly about their plans for the next week or so, and the invitation Vance has received to attend a counter-terrorism summit in Cairo, that regretfully he was forced to turn down because it conflicted with this engagement.

"It was not my intention to disrupt your plans, Leon. If you wish, Mossad could arrange transport for you to attend part of the conference. I myself received the same invitation, so perhaps we might travel together?"

"That would suit, Eli. The formalities do not start until the day after tomorrow, so perhaps tomorrow we will take care of business here and plan to leave at twilight?"

"That sounds acceptable. I will make the arrangements." They chat idly about the state of American politics and the frustrations of directorship, including the hassles of having to approve constant leave applications from staff who put their personal agendas above loyalty to their country.

After half an hour, they stand in tandem and shake hands, both tucking sheets of paper into their jacket pockets. Vance goes to return the borrowed pen to the desk.

"Keep it, Leon. It may come in handy later." Eli says as he raises the blinds and sunlight floods into the room. " You have a car, yes?" Vance nods. " I have reserved a room for you at the hotel you requested. Perhaps we might meet for a nightcap later?"

"Of course. I'll call you when I'm finished my shopping – Kayla has put in a long list of presents in return for my absence at her recital tomorrow. _Daughters_. But it makes her happy, and I would do anything to keep her that way."

Eli smiles, and it is not a pleasant expression. "To the ends of the earth, my friend."

* * *

He stands hesitantly in the doorway, suddenly and inexplicably shy. Ziva thinks for a minute of pretending to be asleep – it would not be too hard to pretend, given the sudden blanket of exhaustion that has draped itself over her.

_To sleep, perchance to dream_, she thinks bitterly, and raises her face to Tony, who smiles gently at her. Inexplicably, her eyes fill and overflow, and he crosses the room in four long strides and ignoring the chair, sits gingerly on the edge of her bed and waits as she bites her lip and breathes through the tears.

Ziva is a realist by trade and by necessity. There is no room for dreamers in Mossad – allowing yourself to be distracted can be the difference between life and death. And this man in front of her – who she had not half an hour ago talked about with scorn and spite in her voice that she does not feel – he is a dreamer at heart.

He tries to hide it, tries to be tough like Gibbs, and there's no denying that he is damaged and imperfect and at times quick to anger. He can be impossible, and he can be impossibly kind all in the same breath, and somehow in the past weeks he has gained an understanding of when not to push.

So he waits, and she tries to find the right words to say what she needs to – to take away the worry in his eyes. _Put on the mask, Ziva,_ she tells herself. _Make him believe you are okay, and he will not ask questions._

But it feels like betrayal, because she thinks that maybe she is not so inscrutable these days. Instead, she raises her eyes to him and says, "You look like hell."

He starts in surprise and lets out a bark of laughter, and she smiles. There are still things that need to be said, but the ice is broken. It's not so hard after all, finding a new rhythm to live by.

"Well, somebody has to do the work around here while you lay around and watch movies," he says with a cheeky grin, then sobers. "Not that I'm complaining." His green eyes fill in the rest. _It's good to have you back._

"Thank you, Tony," Ziva says softly, and he cuts her off with a frown.

"Thank Gibbs," he says a little shortly. "He's the one who found you, and went in to get you. I was just…"

"That was not your choice," she says, touching his arm to stop his frustrated tirade. "I have already thanked Gibbs. Now, I am thanking you." She looks away, unable to meet his eyes and still say what she has to. "Tony, I…"

He cuts her off. "You don't need to do that. I don't… It's all good."

"It is not _all good_," she says more sharply than she intended, and the wall between them wobbles just a little. "I have had a lot of time to think about what happened, and I spent some of it having conversations with you in my head."

She meets his eyes for a second then drops her gaze, focusing on his hand which is covering hers gently. "I did not think I would ever get the chance to – I thought…" She falters, and his thumb starts stroking soothing patterns on the back of her hand, a silent attempt at comfort.

"_Mi dispiace, Tony,"_ she almost whispers, forgetting her English for a moment. She knows he will understand. "I wish I had listened to you when you tried to warn me. I knew already, I think, but I did not want to… and then I accused you of…"

"Ziva," he says in a heavy voice, one finger lifting her chin, "Stop. We both have things to be sorry for, and I'm sure part of you still wants to kick my ass, but can we just not do this… this Washington-esque blame dance? One-two-three-_it's all my fault_-four-five-six…." He trails off and sighs. "Mostly, I'm just glad you're alive. When Gibbs first carried you out, I thought…"

"We are both as useless as each other, it seems," she says, torn between being annoyed at his semi-dismissal and relieved at not having to 'dance'.

Tony bends and presses a chaste kiss to her forehead, and heat spreads slowly through her body. Still unused to tenderness, to gentle hands and kind eyes, she allows herself to become lost in the feeling. When he starts to shift back, her hand touches his cheek, drawing him closer and he freezes, staring at her as though he's never seen her before.

They've always been good at communicating without words.

Perhaps too good, because chocolate and green meet and melt and suddenly Ziva forgets how to breathe, to move, to do anything but stare. She spent long, painful nights, shuddering on the cold floor and thinking – _dreaming_ – of this moment, and now it could be here and the wall in her mind trembles and starts to fall, brick by brick.

He raises an eyebrow, cautious and questioning, and she strokes his face like she wants to memorise the feel of it. _Brick_.

Imperceptibly, he shifts closer on the bed. _Brick_. "Ziva…" he starts uncertainly, and she places a finger to his lips, hoping her eyes are reassurance enough for him. They must be, because his lips purse under her fingertip and he kisses it, feather light. _Brick._

She's not sure what she's doing really, leaping from the cliff without a parachute, but what she does know is that he makes her feel safe – makes her feel loved – makes her _feel_. And there's a pool of molten fire low and tight in her gut that tells her it is working, that she is still capable of something other than hurt and anger.

_And the walls crash down and melt into the pool, all gone bar a handful of lone bricks but there will be time for that later, later… there is time for so much, now._

Time slows around her as they collide and he is impossibly gentle, as if she will crumble under his touch, but she does not want gentle, she wants to _feel_. Her good hand pulls him into her as his runs over her curls and settles on the side of her face that is relatively healed.

They are mindful of each other's wounds, both outside and in, and both are tentative, and it is still too new to be perfect or poetic. And yet, it is everything she dreamed of, all clashing lips and heat and tender hands and the sensation of drowning on dry land. She sinks into the feel of him and oh god, it is just _so_…

She moans softly into Tony's mouth and he pulls back an inch, staring at her quizzically. With a jolt, it occurs to her that he thinks she's in pain, and suddenly pain becomes a relative term, because while her wrist aches and her ribs are starting to burn from sitting so awkwardly, it is all manageable if he would only…

"Ohh, Tony," she gasps, pulling him back in toward her like one reels a gaping fish in from the ocean. He doesn't resist, but he does pause to hook his good arm around her back and shift her up a bit, easing a pillow behind her ribs.

She marvels at the way he seems to know she's in pain before she knows it herself, and wonders if the same is true about other feelings.

She can't find the words, they run and ramble and scroll through her head in a dozen different languages so she presses her lips to his again, hoping he'll understand. He must, because his hand cups the back of her head and his kisses turn hungry, blazing trails of fire down her neck and into the collar of her borrowed OSU shirt (appropriate, given the circumstances)…

And just as suddenly as it started, it stops. He pulls back with a groan and swipes at his hair with a shaking hand, a hand that only seconds ago was warm and soft on her body. Ziva shivers and pulls up the sheet, stranded and suddenly uncertain.

"I can't," Tony says in a strangled voice, not looking at her, and she can't breathe all over again but for the opposite reason. He might as well have punched her in the solar plexus, and she can't hold back the pained gasp.

He turns then, and green eyes widen at the look on her face. "No, I didn't mean it like that," he groans, closing his eyes for a second. When they open again they are impossibly soft and still a little clouded with traces of passion.

"My ninja," he murmurs, motioning for Ziva to move over and settling onto the bed next to her, propped up on his good elbow and staring down at her as though he's looking at her for the first time. "You've been through hell, and you're still healing – no, don't interrupt me, I know you're lying when you say you're fine – and god knows there are better places to make out than under the watchful eye of the nurses."

"And," he says, wrinkling his face in mock horror, "I'm not keen on having Gibbs walk in midway through, because you can play the injured card, but I'm pretty sure he'd shoot me in the – " She laughs despite herself and it rings in the air. Tony grins down at her and brushes a stray curl from her forehead, settling lower in the bed and yawning widely in her ear.

"Tired?" Ziva asks unnecessarily, because he's thrown his arm over her waist and his breathing is already starting to deepen. She's lain awake at night and listened to him pretend to sleep, and he's always there when she wakes, eyes wide and ready to soothe. He murmurs something into her skin and the tickle of his lips makes her smile.

She lies awake and watches the world blow by outside the window as he breathes evenly onto her neck, and her heart dances in her chest because maybe, _just maybe_, there might be room for dreams in her life after all.

* * *

_If you're wondering, 'mi dispiace' is 'I'm sorry' in Italian. :) If anyone watches/watched Buffy, you might understand what I mean when I say today is going to be a 'fire bad, tree pretty' kinda day. It's 4am, which gives me a total of 4 hours sleep before the alarm goes off... Gah! _

_Reviews, as always, are very much appreciated._


	13. Burnt Orange

_**A/N**: Sorry for the long wait. Life is beyond nuts, and I'm nuts for overloading myself with uni work, **actual** work, and various other things. Hurt my back at work and am more than a little miserable, so writing anything that wasn't complete shite this week was pretty much struggletown all 'round. I'm about as useful as Tony when I'm on painkillers. _

"What did we miss? What's happening? *dreamy grin* My fingers are fing-ing..."

_Hoping to have the next chapter up by the weekend, but given my success with deadlines this week, I make no promises. And yeah, it's short and I'm sorry - but something is better than nothing, right? Hope you enjoy!_

* * *

"Did they tell you that 'El Gorah' means 'The Grave' in Arabic?" Ziva says quietly, her face bathed in the fading afternoon light. It's the first thing she's said in half an hour, and Tony's not sure she even realises she said it aloud.

The sun beats down on them, warms broken bones and aching hearts.

"They might have," he says lightly, watching as she startles, "but, y'know, my focus was probably elsewhere. Like yours right about now." He doesn't ask what she sees when she looks out at the bare desert – if she wants him to know, she'll tell him.

It used to bother him, her avoidance of all things personal. He learnt more about McGee in the first week than he's learnt about Ziva in four years, but then McBabble does have a need to overcompensate for his awkwardness with many, many words. If he's being honest, it still bothers him; but given what she's been through he can easily overlook her avoidance of the past. For now.

"Sorry," she says, turning her head to look at him, "I forget sometimes that you are really here; that I'm not talking to myself."

And isn't that just a sucker-punch of a statement.

He's not sure that anything he says won't be grossly inappropriate, so he stays silent and drapes his arm over her shoulders gently instead. Which apparently is also inappropriate, given the sudden stiffening of her muscles under his bare arm.

He draws back without speaking and sits with his hands clasped in his lap like a chastised child, as Ziva bites her lip and looks away awkwardly for a long minute before reaching out to interlace her fingers with his.

They'd be fooling themselves if they thought it would be easy to get back to how it was. _Miles to go_.

They're sitting outside the entrance doors of the medical centre, she in a (much despised but doctor-ordered) wheelchair and he on a rickety folding chair, appropriated from the storage cupboard by a kind and conspiring nurse. Tony wonders whether he should have a chat with Gibbs about being nicer to the personnel on the base – they're beginning to outstay their welcome.

Given her odd mood this afternoon, after she practically jumped him from her near-deathbed just yesterday – not that he's complaining really – he's wondering if he might have outstayed _his_. With her, not with the medical and other ancillary staff, who much to Gibbs's amusement are falling all over him. He's not sure if Ziva's even noticed, but he's not on the floor bleeding so he's guessing she hasn't.

Though, hello, probably not really top of her list of things to think about.

"Guess the Big Dust Bowl was a bit too obvious a name for… well, a big dust bowl," he muses, surveying the camp with a scowl. He can't wait to get out of here. Egypt is less about pyramids and Cleopatra and dancing snakes than it is about stinging wind and the uneasy feeling that he's standing in a big pool of quicksand and could go under any minute. _The Grave_.

Tony can't help but wonder how many 'almosts' they both have left. His mouth dries out instantly at the thought. Ziva's fingers twitch in his, her thumb absentmindedly stroking the pulse point on his wrist. God, he hopes that's not one of those mysterious kill spots. Not that she would… well, he hopes not, anyway.

More to distract himself than to carry on an actual conversation with Ziva, he muses out loud.

"_The Grave_. It's no Skull Island, but it's not bad on the Creepy Place Names scale. Also, I bet it draws some stares from the locals when the MFO's give out their address." He sneaks a peek at Ziva out of the corner of his eye and encouraged by her slight grin, he goes for gold. Cell phone in hand, he puts on a goofy expression.

"Hello, GSM? Yes, I'd like you to redirect my subscription to 'The Grave', please."

"Planning on relocating, DiNozzo?" Gibbs says from behind him, and Ziva shoots out a hand to catch Tony's fumbled phone. She hands it back to him with an amused smile, then lifts her face to Gibbs as he touches her shoulder gently. "You up for a walk, Ziver?"

"Only if I will be allowed to _actually_ walk, Gibbs," she says with a trace of frustration, glaring down at the wheelchair with her best 'assassin death stare'. He sizes her up, then nods his assent. "I am fine," she says testily, ignoring Gibbs's helping hand and pushing herself up with a barely-noticeable wince.

Tony watches as Gibbs shrugs – they both know she's not really – but doesn't comment as Ziva walks slowly down the path toward the direction of the mess hall, Gibbs close by but wisely not touching her. She breaths out a laugh at something Gibbs says and Tony would be jealous, except that it's really too hot to do anything but sit in the shade and dream of ice cubes and icy rain and anything but broiling heat and dry air day in day out.

He'll never be able to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark again without thinking of this place.

Trouble is, they don't know what to do with her now that they've got her. He's surprised Mossad haven't sent a team of bloodhounds out to reclaim their lost fox, and he overheard Gibbs's request that Abby track down Director Vance – though the outcome of that search, he hasn't found out.

Somehow he doubts that Mossad are going to give her up without a fight.

They're treading water in place, waiting for the signal to swim to shore or go under and wait until it's safe. Tony hates aimless, endless waiting, and Ziva hates stakeouts (which is basically the same thing). Gibbs hates cheap coffee.

It's a wonder they haven't killed each other yet.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, the theme from Magnum P.I filtering through the air. Tony glances at the display before picking up – he's never understood why people answer as if they don't know who the caller is when Caller ID is standard. Misdirection, or just not bothering to look?

In this particular case, he's glad he bothered.

"Director Vance," he says flatly by way of greeting, his brow furrowed in confusion as he glances quickly down the road to make sure the dark and silver heads are well out of earshot. He watches as Ziva pauses and looks over her shoulder at him, perceptive as ever, then turns at something Gibbs says and stumbles, just a little.

"Agent DiNozzo." Vance says equally evenly, and in the background canned laughter and bouncy sitcom music blares as though Vance is sitting right in front of the television, trying to block out the possibility of being overheard. " I trust you're enjoying your time in the sun?"

Despite the little gangsta in his head that says '_don't hate the player, man, hate the game_,' he can't keep the sarcasm from his reply. "As a holiday destination, it sucks. I should have gone with my instincts and chosen Miami."

Tony's about had it with all the cryptic words and power games. If everyone said what they meant, he thinks with green eyes fixed on two slowly receding figures, things would be a lot less… messy. "But you didn't call me to request a souvenir," he continues slowly, as a possibility occurs to him with a jolt, "Or did you?"

In the pause, distorted voices blare in a language that is clearly not English. Tony's no expert, but he's listened to Ziva rant in Hebrew enough to vaguely recognise the distinctive sounds, and his eyebrows shoot up as his sun-baked brain makes the connection. He's so busy processing the implications of that, he almost misses Vance's reply.

"I called you, Agent DiNozzo, because Agent Gibbs apparently has ignored my directive to remain contactable at all times; which if I'm not mistaken is one of his_ own_ rules."

"Number three," Tony says automatically, then frowns. "Huh. Well, technically there are _two_ rule three's. Rule 3.2 is '_never believe what you're told without checking your facts'_. I don't know how that happened, though isn't it a co-inky-dink that it should come up. How's the weather in Washington – _warmer_ than you expected?"

"Where's Gibbs?" he hears finally after a meaningful pause, the impatience clear in Vance's tone.

Tony bristles at the dismissal, though it's not entirely unexpected. Vance has never really hidden his dislike of Tony, despite fawning over McGee ('_the call of the geek force is strong with these ones_') and even taking Ziva shopping to buy Christmas presents for the charity collection that one time.

It makes him feel less guilty about thinking the Director of NCIS is pretty much a secretive hard-headed bastard, only more covert about it than the original 'Second B for Bastard,' one Leroy Jethro Gibbs. And speaking of Gibbs…

"Gone for coffee. You know, after almost eight years as Gibbs's Senior Field Agent I _might_ be able to help you with your inquiry, or at least take a message. Me remember things _real_ good, Director." Tony pauses for added dramatic effect. It always seems to work for Gibbs.

"Hey, how _is_ Agent Miller coping with my old buddies on the USS Seahawk?"

There's a long break in the conversation, during which Vance seems to have turned up the volume of the television to almost deafening levels, so much so that Tony winces and holds the phone away from his ear. His suspicion swells and solidifies into a certainty.

"You _listening_, DiNozzo?" Vance says carefully amongst the ebb and flow of undecipherable babble and high-pitched laughter.

"Yeah, so carefully my _eardrums are bleeding_," Tony says pointedly.

"Good. Tell Gibbs his vacation time runs out at sunset." He hangs up without another word and Tony's ears ring painfully in the sudden silence. Oh, he's listening all right.

He **really hates** cryptic words and power games.

"Tony?" Ziva says curiously from nearby, studying him curiously as he blinks into the dirt at his feet and engages every trick she's ever taught him about concealing his thoughts.

When he looks up to meet her gaze, she's moving toward him with only the slightest of limps, Gibbs close behind with a question stamped in the lines of his face. She's breathing deeply and bracing her fibreglass-encased wrist with her other hand; but although sweat is beaded on her temples, her eyes are shining.

Tony promptly forgets all of his learned ninja-concealment tactics and stares longingly at her lips like a man in the desert who's just sighted water on the horizon. Sometimes he still can't believe she's here. It might be real, or it might just be a trick of the light.

Ziva moves a fraction closer to him than necessary and her bare arm brushes his as she sits in the wheelchair without complaint, and that in itself tells him more about how she's feeling than she would ever admit.

"DiNozzo," Gibbs says, their eyes meeting over the top of Ziva's head. Out of sight of the Mossad truth-sniffing dog, Tony shoots his boss a meaningful look. Gibbs's expression doesn't change. "Take Ziva inside, then come find me. I'll be – "

"In the mess hall, mainlining caffeine." He's lucky he's out of slapping range. "On it, Boss."

"Tony? Is everything alright?" Ziva asks as he pushes her back through the door, forcing himself not to quicken his pace. "Who was on the phone?"

"Telemarketer," he says breezily, infinitely glad she can't see his face. "Wouldn't you know it, the sneaky bastards still manage to find you no matter what continent you're on. I need another set of steak knives like I need a hole in the – "

It's incredible how Kate's death still resonates, even after four years.

The wheels squeak on the linoleum as he stops abruptly in the doorway to Ziva's room, mindful of the urgency but also of her still-fresh injuries. "I gotta go," he says in response to her surprised look, and despite his overwhelming desire to stay and help her back into bed, he turns and walks out the door.

Duty calls, and he's a competent, dedicated Senior Field Agent of NCIS who is perfectly capable of focussing on the job at hand.

_Oh, who am I kidding_, Tony thinks with an audible as he makes tracks down the corridor.

Duty _sucks__._

****

Despite his earlier words to DiNozzo, Gibbs leans on the wall just outside the entrance door, scowling at the chipped mug in his right hand from another disappointing coffee run. Being in the middle of the desert is no excuse for_ instant_: hell, he carried a bag of his own Jamaican halfway across Europe.

He looks up from the multi-coloured film of _god knows what_ on the top of his coffee as DiNozzo shoves through the doors, casting a longing glance over his shoulder. Gibbs rolls his eyes and steps forward into his Senior Field Agent's line of sight. Blue eyes meet green and narrow.

"Have a nice chat with Director Vance, DiNozzo?"

It never fails to amuse him, the way his agents always manage to look so surprised when he anticipates what they're about to tell him. Gibbs just shrugs. "He called me three times, but I was busy enjoying the fresh air. Figured if it was important, he'd try you next. And?"

Tony doesn't smile, just stares with steely eyes. "Vance is in Israel."

"Yeah, DiNozzo. I know."

His lips tighten and his face reddens with something that might be anger. "You were planning on telling me when, exactly? Because hey, Vance and Ziva's…" and he spits the word out like poison, "_father_, they're a match made in the same place they breed attorneys and romantic comedies." Green eyes darken with frustration and a barely concealed edge of sorrow. "I can't… I can't lose her again, boss. Not after we just got her back, and definitely not to _them_."

"You think I'm gonna stand by and watch them cart her back to Israel, DiNozzo?" he asks, though honestly he has no idea how he could prevent it. "Gotta admit, I didn't think Vance would let you in on his itinerary."

"He didn't," Tony says in response, bitterness lacing his words. He rubs his ear ruefully.

"Thanks to the wonders of the Israeli entertainment industry, I figured it out on my own. He did oblige by turning the sound up to unprecedented levels, though knowing Vance, that might have been just to piss me off. But you know Vance, he never does anything without an ulterior motive. If he didn't want me to know, I'd be inside in the air-conditioned comfort of Ziva's hospital room right now, pouring her water and fixing her pillows and whatever other clichés there are. I'd be clueless right until he showed up at the front door."

Gibbs tilts his head and studies his agent, impressed but not really surprised. DiNozzo might hide beneath a comfortable layer of slapstick comedy, but underneath he's sharp as a tack. He sighs, leaning back against the sun-soaked wall. "So Vance is coming here. Any idea when?"

"Tonight, I'd say. You couldn't have asked for an extra day of vacation time?" Tony asks oddly, and though Gibbs doesn't understand the barb he doesn't question it. Other priorities.

"How am I supposed to tell Ziva?" DiNozzo asks in a low voice, his eyes on the stubbly scrub outside the boundary fence.

"You don't have to," Gibbs says offhandedly, "She knows better than anyone the lengths her father will go to, and she knows Vance is with him, because I just told her. Figured they'd show up here soon enough." Again with the surprise. He would smack DiNozzo for being so damned obvious about it – he's taught him better than that – but perhaps later.

Right now, the other man looks ready to mount the final defence at the camp's gates, unarmed and burning with the need to protect that is sometimes his downfall, sometimes his greatest asset.

"The question now is, is he coming _to_ her or _for_ her?" Gibbs asks, more to himself than to Tony.

Off the confused look, he continues quietly, "I'm not sure we're getting the whole story here. You're an observant man, Tony. Surely you noticed we had a little help with Ziva's rescue. If David sent our Mossad friends Kasim and Levi to kill her, well, they had the perfect opportunity as part of Team Alpha to make sure it was done before I even got through the door. Not to mention that Leon was the one who pointed us to Eritrea in the first place – "

Tony turns and punches the wall in frustration, simmering with anger. He paces around the small space like a caged tiger, kicking up dust as he moves. "_Fuck_, Gibbs, when are you going to quit all this secrets and lies bullshit? You think you can – "

"_Not done_."

Tony stops in his tracks at Gibbs's steely tone. Gibbs takes a moment to organise his tumbling thoughts as Tony flexes his hand with a tight, humourless smile.

"Wouldn't do that again, DiNozzo. NCIS insurance doesn't cover stupid."

"NCIS insurance cover clandestine rescue and recovery missions to the middle of Bumfuck, Egypt, Boss? Because if they do I'm claiming emotional hardship, not to mention excessive dust inhalation. Can't be good for the lungs," DiNozzo shoots back immediately, but without any real anger. He almost looks amused until he remembers the topic of conversation.

"We just going to sit around and wait for them to arrive, guns blazing?"

"Got any other suggestions?" Gibbs asks, deciding that enough is enough for now. The rest is all speculation anyway. Speculation and gut feeling, and goddamn he hopes he's right in this case. If not… well, given their lack of transportation and location, as well as Ziva's injuries, they're not exactly equipped for a gruelling trek through the desert.

Tony's obviously realised this too, because he looks away into the setting sun, blinking. "If this was a movie…"

"It's not." Gibbs says shortly, then softens. "Doesn't mean you shouldn't make plans, or be prepared. It won't be easy for her. She'll need someone to watch her back. You think you can do that without destroying hospital property, or assaulting directors of international agencies?"

Tony actually considers it for a minute. "If it was just me… no. But it's not; so yeah, I got it covered. And you'll be doing what exactly?"

"Divide and conquer, DiNozzo. Also known as Rule 1."

"Right," Tony says, then frowns. "Wait. You mean Rule 1 - '_never let suspects stay together_,' or… Rule 1 - '_never screw over your partner'_?"

Tony grins a little and moves out of Gibbs's reach, then says "Y'know, I think you really need to work on your numbering system, Boss."

Gibbs just flexes his fingers and walks back through the entrance doors, dumping his coffee – mug and all – into the trash can disdainfully. Part of him wonders if it's too late to call Leon and ask him to bring a decent grind with him. Surely David knows where to get coffee that doesn't taste like dishwater and dust.

_You'll keep, DiNozzo_, he thinks with a hidden smile.

* * *

_Reviews, as always, are very much appreciated - and thanks again (a million times) to those of you who have been reviewing faithfully. I probably wouldn't have gotten this chapter finished without the threat of disappointing everyone who's been waiting so patiently. Thanks for reading!_


	14. Blue, White and Red

_**Author's Note:**__ Apologies for the wait between chapters. It took a tree through my roof to spur me back into writing. Next time, I'm hoping it will be a more subtle message – like maybe a lottery win, or a packet of Tim Tams that never runs out. Hey, a girl can dream ;) _

_Hope you enjoy…_

* * *

"Have you heard from Gibbs?" McGee asks as he enters Abby's lab, jacket draped over his right arm and backpack hanging from his left. A shot rings out from within the firearms testing lab and he startles slightly at the sound, his jaw clenching at the effort not to gasp.

He's come a long way since his probie days in Norfolk, but he doesn't think he'll ever get used to the sound of gunfire, especially since it's been weeks since their last shootout-type situation.

Maybe that's not a bad thing.

Truth be told, he's glad of the relaxed work schedule since Gibbs and Tony left. It gives him time to catch up on paperwork and do all of the filing that Tony has somehow neglected for the past… well, judging by the sheer amount of paper, it's been at least a year. Though government agencies are notorious for overuse of paper, so it might have just been the last month or so.

He reminds himself again to talk to Vance about making the transition to paper-free reporting. No point asking Gibbs, since his boss has the same level of appreciation for technology as he does apologies and instant coffee. Really, the need to create endless paper trails in triplicate is tiresome and redundant, since everything could easily be accessed online or through the NCIS mainframe…

"Who died and made me Gibbs' secretary?" Abby gripes as she stomps through the inner doors of the lab, pulling off her protective gear with an irritated swipe. "Nice to see you too, McGee, and congratulations for abandoning all the pesky social niceties. When's the boat building start?"

"Sorry," he says with a sigh, dropping his bag near the refrigerator and moving closer to Abby cautiously. "It's been a long day of shuffling paper and trying to decode Tony's file labelling system, which is in no way connected to our Earth logic."

Okay, maybe he's not so glad of the relaxed work schedule. At the very least, it reminds him why exactly he joined NCIS in the first place – for something more than a life of paper-pushing and programming.

"What are you doing, anyway?" he asks curiously, noticing for the first time the open programs on the monitors. Things are beeping and scanning and scrolling on three different screens and he can't for the life of him figure out why. All the new cases have been temporarily reassigned to the Norfolk Field Office, his own former stomping ground.

Agent Yates from the San Diego office is acting as temporary team leader in Gibbs' absence, chasing up leads from their current cases along with an agent borrowed from the Domestic Violence Unit.

McGee isn't particularly bothered by this, because while part of him had entertained the thought of having his own try at being the boss, a larger and far more sensible part knows that he still has a lot to learn about the operational side of things. Besides, there's no point being the boss of a team that currently consists of one.

Also, it seems he has a lot still to learn about dealing with women, if Abby's current mood is any indication. He almost wishes Tony was here. _Almost_.

"…and so I said to the one-armed man, why is your nose hair green?"

"Not sure," Tim answers absently, instantly regretting it as pain shoots through his leg. Abby's kicked him like a petulant five-year-old, but he's smart enough not to point that out or pretend he was listening to her.

Some snakes you just don't poke.

"If you'd been listening, McGee, you'd know that I'm running the files we pulled from Rivkin's laptop through a new program. It should be able to tell us the exact time and date the files were modified, and maybe even source a remote log-in ID from the email, if we're lucky." She's typing furiously as she speaks, and only pauses to pin McGee with a meaningful look.

"Plus, I'm tracking Vance and Officer Hadar's cell phones for Gibbs," Abby adds as she turns back to the monitors with a flick of pigtails, "which he asked me to do _when he called yesterday_. Vance is still sitting pretty in Tel Aviv, as far as I can tell, and Hadar made a call at 0615 this morning from Nirim – near the Gaza Strip – before disappearing off the grid."

"That something we should be worrying about?"

"Well, he is Evil David's right hand goon, but I don't think we need to worry unless – "

There's a whirr and a beep from one of the programs, and Abby seizes the mouse and clicks through the screens until she finds the one she wants. McGee shifts his weight and suppresses the urge to rub his shinbone.

"Unless?" he prompts, slightly unnerved by her silence. Perturbed, even, though he's a field agent and is afraid of nothing. Except boats. And heights. And thanks to Tony and Ziva's constant pranks, cyanoacrylate.

"Unless I find evidence that the bugged email found on the computer in Ziva's apartment _and_ those supposedly sent from Rivkin to Ziva were actually sent by said evil goon," Abby replies tightly after a minute of furious scanning, "who has _also_ been communicating with a group in… wait for it… _Nirim_ – who are on the FBI's terrorism watch-list."

"I'm guessing from your tone that, uh, this group are not on the 'allies' list," McGee says with a frown, looking over her shoulder at the damning text. This would be the time to start worrying, right? Highly trained Mossad agents do not just vanish into thin air, and especially not into places that are so close to hostile territory (though admittedly, he has only the barest idea of how Israel-Gaza relations stand).

Well, unless they've been sent there on someone else's orders, that is.

"Excellent deduction, Special Agent McGee," Abby mutters, reaching for the phone. "I'm calling Gibbs. If you want to be useful, you could work off some of that worry with a short walk to the Caf-Pow machine…" she hints, dialling Gibbs' number a touch more forcefully than necessary.

Tim sighs and hangs his jacket from a knob on one of the many machines on his way out the door. _Tim always follows instructions without question_, his fifth-grade teacher had written on his report card much to his parents' delight, _but is prone to daydreaming_.

He tries to hide the slight limp, at least until he's out of Abby's sight. He forces back the sudden unsettled feeling in his stomach and wonders if this is what Gibbs means when he refers to his famous gut. There's only one way to describe it, even if you are a famous and celebrated (and possibly blocked _forever_) writer.

It _sucks_.

* * *

Gibbs leans against the outer wall of the infirmary, watching a trail of dust approach at a blistering pace across the horizon. It rises, thickens and then fades among the vivid red-gold of sunset as the vehicle creating the disturbance moves closer to the outer fence of the camp. He watches carefully with an air of nonchalance, ignoring various personnel moving around the camp lazily in the waning heat and paying him varying degrees of attention.

Despite his feigned confidence in Ziva's safety for Tony's sake (the baking heat is softening him like butter on a hot bench), Gibbs is troubled by the impending visit, if only because of what it could mean for Ziva. She herself had needed no further explanation beyond the fact that Vance was in Israel.

Or at least, she had not _asked_ for further explanation. Whether she needs it or not, Gibbs isn't sure. He's torn between his usual stoicism and sharing DiNozzo's reaction to all of the secrets, personally. Once upon a time, he would have punched a wall too.

Part of him can't help replaying his conversation with the SECNAV as the heat of the bricks seeps through his shirt and into his coiled muscles.

"_You're not the only one looking out for the integrity of NCIS… Leon's going to be point man in a major operation."_

"_You ordering me to trust him?"_

"_No. Just to follow him."_

The trail of dust crawls toward the main gate and stops dead. In the distance Gibbs can make out a uniformed figure leaning in the window of the Mercedes SUV, unhurried and unsurprised. Figures that Vance would have called ahead. If he's being honest, he's grateful to the Director for putting the visit off until now. From what DiNozzo told him of the brief conversation, Vance wanted them to know that he was coming, and that in itself was almost enough to quell Gibbs' lingering suspicion.

Almost. After all, rule #3 (or 3.2, as Tony had finally pointed out; he's surprised none of them picked up on the doubled numbers before now) requires more than just 'almost', and Gibbs has some questions of his own before the pair of Directors get past the front door.

He hopes his Senior Field Agent can keep his cool when the inevitable happens. Hell, he hopes Ziva can keep _her_ cool. Not that he's especially worried about the latter's ability to keep her emotions in check – her knife, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. Gibbs saw the assumed betrayal ice over her eyes when she spoke of her father, and wonders now if it was the right thing to do, not to share his suspicions.

Trouble is, he still doesn't quite know what his suspicions are, except for his gut feeling that there is something happening here that's beyond her, beyond him, perhaps even beyond Vance. Eli David is certainly no father of the year, but the father in Gibbs is screaming in protest at the thought that a child could be tossed away so casually like yesterday's newspaper.

And yet… there remains the spectre of Ari Haswari and his bitter words to Gibbs in his dark basement. Baptised by fire in an unrelenting land and groomed to kill and deceive and misdirect as easily as others laugh and love.

If Ari was the pawn, Ziva is the queen, deadly and unpredictable and filled with grace beyond her years. In the end, though, even the queen is expendable, though if it comes to that Gibbs will fight tooth and nail to keep her from being sacrificed in the endgame.

The car crawls toward him in a spit of stones and a subdued whirl of dust as if even the ground beneath the tires is subtly protesting its arrival. Gibbs folds his arms and waits until the dust settles, watching as two figures exit the vehicle and exchange an unsurprised glance before moving toward him. For a moment, he thinks they're going to pass by him, but Eli David meets his eyes and changes his trajectory so that they meet somewhere in the middle. Brown eyes meet ice blue and hold; unwavering and carefully expressionless.

"Shalom, Agent Gibbs," Eli says evenly with an almost imperceptible nod. "I had hoped we would not meet again so soon, and under such circumstances."

Vance is looking on warningly, but Gibbs has never been one to be silenced by authority.

"You here to take my agent, Director?" he asks bluntly, noting the flash in the other man's eyes at his direct question and terminology. Unlike the last time they met, Eli does not correct his use of the word 'agent,' merely glances toward the entrance impatiently.

Pointedly, Gibbs shifts so that he is standing in between the doors and the man, a silent if ultimately futile challenge. He might challenge his place in the pecking order at times, but he certainly _knows_ it – and if the Director of Mossad has come to take his operative back to Israel, there's really not a lot that Gibbs can do to stop him.

Doesn't mean he won't fight it tooth and nail, though.

Resignation replaces irritation as Eli focuses on him. "I have come to see my daughter," he says in a quiet, measured voice, and for the first time Gibbs notices the shadows under his eyes. He bites down on the scathing retort that hovers on the tip of his tongue.

"Gibbs," Vance says as he steps into the conversation, "Is there someplace nearby that's safe to talk?" Despite the lift at the end of the sentence, it's not actually a question.

"Doc Angelou pointed me to the conference room," Gibbs replies, keeping his eyes on Eli. "Took the liberty of having it swept for bugs, just in case." The narrowing of the Mossad Director's eyes says enough about his role in Vance's little early warning system, and Gibbs can't help but respect the NCIS Director's nerve.

"Guess you got my message then," Vance says with a quirk of his lips and an apologetic shrug in Eli's direction. "Your boy might be a clown, but he's quick on the uptake."

The mild surprise in his tone makes Gibbs bristle. He'll have to talk to DiNozzo about laying off the joker routine when they get back to Washington. He's alienating the wrong people, despite Vance's approval of his 'interrogation' tactics in Tel Aviv.

"Food's usually served around now," Gibbs says with a quick glance at his watch, "Can't guarantee it'll be gourmet, but it's mostly edible." _Let her eat in peace before you intrude, _he thinks to himself, and to his surprise Eli doesn't try to fight it.

"Very well," the Director says with a dismissive hand wave. "Let us adjourn to the conference room until after the meal. There are matters that we need to discuss." His eyes harden and in that moment he looks very much like his daughter does when she's pursuing something. "But do not forget, Agent Gibbs, that I came to see Ziva and I _will_ see her regardless of your wishes."

"Never said you couldn't," Gibbs says calmly as they walk into the building and down the corridor in the opposite direction to Ziva's room. Beside him, Vance tenses briefly in anticipation of a fight, relaxing subtly when stony silence falls instead.

Gibbs nods to a nurse down the corridor and she comes with her keys to open the conference room door. No bigger than any other room in the not-quite-hospital, it is sparsely furnished and smells like antiseptic and stale dust, though the walls are a lemon yellow that brightens the space considerably.

His phone rings as Vance shuts the door behind him, and Gibbs checks the display and frowns. Pointing to the table and chairs, he holds up two fingers and answers the call.

"McGee giving you a hard time again, Abby?"

"Hey!" he hears echoing in the background and he fights not to smile at McGee's indignant tone. Abby clears her throat meaningfully and starts talking so quickly that Gibbs can barely keep up.

"Gibbs! I miss you. We all miss you. _All_ of you. No, McGee, don't try and deny it – you've been moping around like a little kid forbidden from playing on the swings until he's eaten his broccoli. He really has, Gibbs; and just yesterday he was saying – "

"There a point to this story, other than payback?" he asks distractedly, mindful of Vance's pointed glare. On the other end, Abby stops short and he can almost _feel_ her indignant glare down the phone.

"Is it safe to talk there?" she asks oddly, but doesn't wait for a response. "Right. Cell phone. Never safe with all the pesky satellites roaming around honing in on things. By the way, have you seen our fearless leader lately?"

"You could say that, Abs."

"Oh. Damn. Gibbs, we found – well, I found, but McGee helped distract me while I was waiting – a digital signature on those emails Rivkin sent Ziva…"

He listens without expression as Abby outlines her findings and signs off hurriedly, citing the ever-growing phone bill as a reason for not having time to chat. Gibbs suspects she actually wants to leave him so that he has the chance to rip Vance a new one.

"Everything is well back home, Agent Gibbs?" Eli questions from his seat at the table. He lifts the percolator in front of him and pours a cup, and the heavenly scent of freshly ground Jamaican blend curls around the room. Sometime during his chat with Abby, Eli – or perhaps Vance – have boiled the kettle and made…

"Coffee?"

"This a bribe?" he asks wryly, though if it is, it's working better than he'll ever admit.

Vance shakes his head and despite Gibbs' resolve to stay aloof the rich smell clouds the air temptingly, the offered cup black and strong and missing the oily film on top that he's almost gotten used to over the past week. Almost.

_Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades_, he thinks as he pulls out a chair.

"Not _my_ house we should be worrying about, Director," he replies to the earlier question. "Hadar didn't care to join you on your road trip? Seems a little risky, two esteemed agency directors travelling without security."

"Officer Hadar is overseeing matters in Tel Aviv," Eli replies calmly, and Gibbs looks at him for a moment, assessing the truth of the statement. "We had a Mossad protection detail travel with us on the helicopter. They remained behind in El Aryish at my request, to avoid drawing a crowd."

"Helps if your enemy don't know where you're going, yeah?" Gibbs adds lightly, taking a long sip of coffee as David draws back and puffs up like a poked cobra. There's a rattle from outside as the meal trolley goes by and the three figures wait for the noise to pass before Vance leans forward with narrowed eyes.

"What do you know, Gibbs?"

He would laugh at Leon's audacity, but it's really not that funny. "That depends. Are you or are you not here to take Ziva back to Tel Aviv? Because if you_ are_, I have no information to share."

"Agent Gibbs, you have no authority to question the Director of the Mossad, nor to suggest that you will essentially hold him hostage for information!" Vance says sharply, banging his hand on the table and looking at Gibbs as though he's gone mad.

Gibbs just tilts his head and stares at Eli. "Good thing Mossad doesn't negotiate in hostage situations, isn't it? Well, perhaps not so good for some."

Ziva's battered and frightened face when they found her flits into his mind unbidden. He rages on her behalf. "According to my people, your loyal number two has gone to visit _family_ in Nirim… you sign off on that, Director?"

Eli's face shows his surprise for just a second too long before the mask flutters back into place. It's enough for Gibbs, and he breathes a sigh of relief at correctly assessing the threat of the fighters in the latest inter-agency operations.

It's a dangerous game in the agency ring, circling and eyeing each other; nobody wanting to throw the first punch in case they leave themselves open to attack. Each man (or woman, as it may be) protecting themselves and their agency at all costs while still ducking and dodging questions. Gibbs hates dancing the political tango. If the world were less about duck and weave and more about the strength of the punch, that would suit him fine, though he'd probably have perpetual bruises.

He's learnt to get around the endless political snafu mostly, and deal with the fallout later – hell, there's even a rule about it.

"I did not," David replies with a fleeting look at Vance before turning back to Gibbs. "You are aware, then, that there are certain… security problems… within Mossad. You may find it especially ironic that Hadar is head of the investigations task force, at least publicly. Privately, I have been concerned about his loyalty to Israel for some time now."

"Ziva?" Gibbs asks simply.

"Was… an unfortunate and unintended casualty in a far greater game. As you said so succinctly before, Mossad does not negotiate with terrorists."

Gibbs is not disturbed by much these days, but nausea rises in his gut when Eli says those words in an expressionless voice, as though he was talking about the weather. _Sunny and warm out, isn't it? My daughter is being tortured in Africa. Pity we haven't had more rain this season. Mossad does not negotiate with terrorists._

"Who?" he asks instead, biting back the swell of almost fatherly protectiveness. After all, someone has to fill the role that has obviously been vacant for years.

"Hamas," Vance fills in simply, his face unreadable. As a father himself, one would hope that Vance is at least a little sickened at what he's just heard. He pulls two sheets of paper from his briefcase and hesitates before handing it to Gibbs. "This information does not leave this room, Gibbs. Not DiNozzo, not David. _Nobody_. Got it?"

"Yeah," he says, because what other answer is there? _No sir, I would rather bury my head in the sand outside and wait for them to come for her._ Not a chance.

The writing is scrawled across the pages, clearly a conversation between Vance and Eli. An old spy trick when you believe you're under surveillance – talk aloud about trivial things to fool the listeners and write the important information down.

_*_

_Extraction successful, doctor reports recovering well under medical care at NBC._

Status of camps?

_Target eliminated. Your agents?_

Most likely enjoying the desert sun.

_Keep them there. Status of investigation?_

Domino secured. Leak remains plugged. Sitrep?

_Increased chatter noted re: Hamas activity. Files on my computer have indeed been accessed without my permission._

Who?

_Suspect._

When?

_Prior to Puntland operation. Mission details/coordinates accessed for three minutes at 0146 the day before operatives scheduled to report._

*

"Hadar wasn't read in on the details of the raid?" Gibbs asks without looking up.

"I was… displeased with his handling of the Rivkin situation," Eli replies. "He was on administrative leave for awhile, and only returned to the office the day before the raid. I saw no reason to read him in, but I suppose he found out in his own way."

*

Further contact?

_Two days ago. Same demands. My resignation for my daughter._

And?

_Domino._

_*_

Somehow, Gibbs always knew that would come back to bite them. Domino: the top secret military contingency plan which specifically details how the US would respond to a terrorist attack on target of interest in Israel or the Middle East. In short, a nightmare in the wrong hands.

*

They do not know of Mossad's role in the rescue.

_Not Mossad. Private contractors, if you will. _

Risky bluff.

_Necessary_.

Suspect status?

_Still active, but assigned only non-sensitive tasks. Unaware of my surveillance order_.

*

Gibbs supposes it's not all that uncommon to have multiple secret investigations going at one time, especially in an agency such as Mossad. After all, Jenny was pursuing La Grenouille for months without him being aware, and once upon a time he could read her like a book. Once upon a time in Paris when they were young.

*

Next step?

_Phase Two. The leak must be plugged on both ends._

There is a summit in Cairo tomorrow that we should attend. Perhaps a detour first?

_Agreed._

*

"How far?" Gibbs asks, his head swimming with the implications.

Hamas are after Domino. NCIS were known to have Domino in their possession at one time, or at least could obtain it. Ziva was kidnapped to force her father's resignation and to gain information about the workings of American intelligence…

"If Ziva had been operating as a _true_ Mossad Liaison Officer, rather than the somewhat dubious role Director Shepherd assigned to her? Further than this. As it is, her monthly reports to Michael Bashan at the Embassy were mostly insignificant."

Gibbs has been wondering since the beginning why Ziva was put on his team and not in the CIA… or somewhere that could put her skillset to good use. He didn't know she was reporting back to Mossad quite so frequently, however, but Ziva is nothing if not a staunch keeper of secrets.

She has the scars to prove it.

Eli David sighs and folds his hands on top of the table, the yellow walls giving his skin a sickly cast. "You do not have suitable clearance to be read in on Phase Two. However, we are left at an impasse regarding the safety of my daughter." He smiles sadly. "I do not wish to cause her any more harm."

"If you take her back to Israel, Hadar will know instantly that you were involved in her rescue. He'll disappear, probably put a hit out on both of you, and you'll be caught in the middle of a terrorism clusterfuck," Gibbs supplies matter-of-factly.

"Colourfully put, but essentially correct."

"Well? What's your Plan B?"

Gibbs listens, and when the voices die away he is smiling.

* * *

There's a knock on the door, and Ziva blinks awake suddenly in the half-light of dusk, cursing the painkillers that leave her somewhere between slightly drowsy and fall-out tired. Her ribs still ache from her walk with Gibbs earlier, though it was worth it to be able to walk without an eager nurse or an eager physiotherapist providing inane commentary about how well she was doing. Tony falls somewhere in between the two – casually supportive, but a little protective at times.

Considering how she came to be here, she can almost understand it. Sometimes, it's almost nice to think there's someone watching out for her – but the feeling is still new and it chafes a little. Yes, he 'watched her six' when they worked crime scenes together, but this new protectiveness is tempered with something deeper and infinitely gentle.

Ziva is terrified of what it might mean – for her, for him, for everyone.

"Hey," Tony says from his spot in the corner, unusually far away. He cocks his head toward the door when she looks at him curiously. "It's your call. You want me to shoot him, you just say the word."

She grins despite herself at his half-serious tone, and thinks for a brief moment of asking him to come closer. She's not weak, and she's certainly not about to give the impression that she's dependent, so she keeps her mouth shut and glances toward the door.

"Ziver?" Gibbs calls softly, cracking open the door enough so that she can make out the two figures behind him. Unsure of what to do – the child inside her wants her Papa, and the adult wants to punch him in his smug self-important face – she closes her eyes and breathes raggedly.

The bed dips under Tony's sudden weight and he touches her hand tentatively. "You don't have to – "

"I am well aware of that, Tony," Ziva says curtly, then curses herself for being such a witch. "Sorry," she mutters, feeling stupidly close to tears. She's cried more in the past two weeks than in the last ten years, and that bothers her more than her healing bones and bruised flesh.

She takes a deep breath and bites her lip, trying to focus on the anger she feels. Being angry is preferable to being afraid, and certainly easier to work with when one has something to hide.

"Entrez," she says, and then blinks and translates, "I mean, come in."

Gibbs opens the door but does not step through it, moving aside instead for another hard-eyed silver haired man. Only, it looks so unlike her father that she blinks in surprise. The great Director of Mossad does not look weary, and he certainly does not look apologetic. She's seen this expression on his face only twice in her life, both times for other women that he has lost. He is mourning.

Her first reaction is sympathy, and then her ribs remind her who exactly is the wronged party here.

"Director," she says evenly, and he barely hides a flinch. Gibbs meets her eyes and she nods her assent. He leaves silently, taking Vance with him, and Ziva hopes that neither men are armed if they have to spend any length of time together. Luckily, they're close enough to medical care to fix things if the need arises.

Her father is saying something to Tony, something about… "No," she interrupts firmly. "Agent DiNozzo stays, or you go. It is that simple." Finally, the anger she's been searching for.

She slips into Hebrew unconsciously, aware that Tony cannot understand but not particularly caring. Perhaps it is a good thing.

"You used me, Aba," she says furiously, "You lured me back to you by destroying everything I cared about and then once that was complete, you sent me on an end run. Forgive me for not being entirely comfortable being alone in a room with you, when you' re clearly armed and I am…" she waves a hand down her body scornfully, "reaping the fruits of _your_ labour."

Ah, idioms are not so hard in Hebrew. If Tony could understand, he would be proud.

"_Tateleh_," her father says gently, taking a single step closer and stopping as if stung at her expression. The tears burn hotly behind her eyes. _Good soldiers do not cry_, she tells herself, an echo of his words from the past.

"Don't call me that," she bites out, seeking to wound. "I am not your little darling, and I am not Talia or Ima. Don't you _dare_ look at me as though you are in mourning for a loss that _you_ caused."

The words come out punctured and broken through a throat of jagged glass, and unseen by her father, she squeezes Tony's hand so tightly that her nails leave little crescent moons in his skin. He does not flinch under her grip.

"Ziva," he says instead, his voice heavy, "I did not know that you would be taken from the ship. I am not…." He bows his head and when he raises his eyes to her she can see every line etched into his face.

Old, tired men and their regrets, stripped to the bone and raw at the edges like the burns on her weary shoulders.

The dead stir and churn behind his eyes and she looks away because they are too much like her own. Tony's weight is warm comfort beside her, and oh if only she could sink into it and be lost for awhile.

"I have done many things that I am not proud of in my life," he says quietly, and Ziva has never heard such raw sorrow in his voice. "The day that you were born, I looked into your eyes and swore that from that point on, I would be a better man. All that I have done – all I have worked for – was to give you and your sister a safe and bright future, and I have failed you like I failed Tali. I am asking you now, though I know I have no right, to believe me when I say that had I known how your story would end, I would have chosen a different path for you."

Despite herself, despite her anger and grief, Ziva cannot help but believe his pained words. She cannot find the words among the tumble in her head, so she nods instead and his face comes so close to crumbling that she almost feels the disintegration like a knife through her heart.

It is the best she can offer – not absolution, not forgiveness, but acceptance – and for now that will have to be enough for him.

Pushing herself up on the bed despite the weary blunted pain in her wrist, she studies her once-hero with a measured gaze, slipping back into English so that Tony can understand her words.

"I will not go back there," she says with steely determination. "I have no further business with the Institute. If this were America, I would be surrendering my badge and weapon; but it is not, and so I have nothing to put before you but my words."

That will have to be enough, because she has nothing left to give, having given her soul and bled blue and white for most of her adult life.

"I did not come to bring you h… _back_," he says, stepping closer. "Director Vance – or perhaps Agent Gibbs – will explain everything on the flight home. You leave tomorrow at sunrise." He frowns and glances at Tony, and slips back into Hebrew. "You are happy, my daughter?"

Ziva blinks back a stray tear. "My story has not ended yet, Aba," she says quietly.

"Be safe," he says in reply, and with a nod to Tony he turns and strides from the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Tony turns and stares at her wide-eyed. "Remind me never to piss him off," he says lightly, his face breaking into a disbelieving grin. "And you know I don't speak Hebrew, so please tell me he was serious, because if I have to spend another day breathing in the goddamn dust in this shithole excuse for a camp, I won't be held accountable for my actions."

Ziva can't help but smile, imagining him waging a one-armed, one-man war on the dust rabbits and tumbleweed. "We're going home," she says with light tone and lighter heart, and laughs out loud at his triumphant little dance around the room.

He leans into her and presses his lips to hers and despite the lingering image of her father's broken expression, she allows herself to freefall into the promise of the future, bright and warm and red-gold like the sun disappearing beyond the horizon.

* * *

_And that, wonderful readers, is game, set and match, at least as far as this particular story goes. I'm torn between doing an epilogue and a whole new story/sequel, because there's more to explore here (not in the least some quality fix-Tiva time). Thoughts??_

_Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me so faithfully despite my shockingly patchy posting schedule. If you're the kind of person who waits until the end to review, now would be a good time to tell me what you thought. Again, I can't find enough words to thank those of you who took the time to comment on my mad scribblings. In the words of Ringo Starr, peace and love. :) xx_


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